The Christmas Annual is a traditional thing—and all manner of things can receive a Christmas Annual. Those of our childhoods would have been tie-ins to the comic books we read, such as the Dandy or the Beano, or the television series that we enjoyed, for example, Doctor Who. Typically, here in the United Kingdom, they take the form of slim hardback books, full of extra stories and comic strips and puzzles and games, but annuals are found elsewhere too. In the USA, ongoing comic book series, like Batman or The X-Men, receive their own annuals, though these are simply longer stories or collections of stories rather than the combination of extra stories and comic strips and puzzles and games. In gaming, TSR, Inc.’s Dragon magazine received its own equivalent, the Dragon Annual, beginning in 1996, which would go from being a thick magazine to being a hardcover book of its own with the advent of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. For the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024—as with the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2022, and the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023—the format is very much a British one. This means puzzles and games, and all themed with the fantasy and mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons, along with content designed to get you into the world’s premier roleplaying game.

Despite what it says in the introduction, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 is not quite a book for everyone. This is because its content is really geared to towards players new to roleplaying and Dungeons & Dragons, with lots of advice on how to get started and what choices to make, and overviews of many different aspects of the roleplaying game, its settings, and history. This is not the only content in the book though and there is some of it that will be of interest to more experienced players, especially the community creators content. As usual the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 is replete with excellent artwork drawn from the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons, a handful of puzzles, and spotlights thrown on some of the baddest villains in Dungeons & Dragons.

Published by Harper Collins Publishers, Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 opens with a ‘Quick Start Guide’, a flow chart that takes the reader step-by-step how to get into the hobby and start playing. This begins with finding your people and deciding who will be the Dungeon Master before moving on through character creation, session zero, and all the way to the first session and afterwards. It is simple and it is clear, and it begins a guide that runs through the pages of this annual. It continues with ‘A History of D&D’, a fairly broad timeline that brings the roleplaying game up to today, when its future remains unknown as we await the arrival of a new edition later this year. ‘Finding a Game’ under ‘Roll for Inspiration’ suggests options for finding other players, such as playing by post, playing at a games store, or playing online, again giving each option a thumbnail description, a starting point rather than full advice. ‘Roll for Inspiration’ also suggests ‘Playing in Alternative Settings’, including Science Fiction, Steampunk, Noir, and more. Some of these suggestions point to actual Dungeons & Dragons books such as Curse of Strahd for a Gothic setting. Other entries under ‘Roll for Inspiration’ give a guide to combat, creating your own campaign settings, and more.

The guide to playing and getting ready to play, really begins with ‘Character Creation’, which breaks down the character sheet for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and details the very basics of the process, whilst the ‘Classified’ feature examines the various Classes in the roleplaying game, explaining what they do, their skills, why they are so good, and so on. Thus ‘Casters’ does this for Arcane spellcasters, ‘Tanks’ for fighting types, and ‘Utility’ does it for the Bard, the Rogue, the Ranger, and the Cleric. The descriptions are basic, but their aim is to sell what playing a member of each Class is like and in that it succeeds.

The ‘Heroes & Villains’ section begins big with ‘Vecna and Kas’, the first look at some the signature figures in Dungeons & Dragons. The descriptions are short, but to the point, and richly illustrated, but each comes with his or her own story, a fact file, pertinent points, and so on. In the case of ‘Vecna and Kas’, this includes both the Eye of Vecna and the Hand of Vecna, and his cult. What is really great about the description of Vecna is that it includes a sidebar about the ‘Head of Vecna’, a non-magical item that would lend itself to a great gaming story and gaming legend. It is a great story, but it is not necessarily a familiar one. So, what it shows about Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 is that its author knows or understands the world of Dungeons & Dragons—or at least, has done his homework. Of course, ‘Vecna and Kas’ is also looking forward to the now recently released Vecna – Eve of Ruin. ‘Tasha’ does the same for the Witch Queen, famed for her spells like Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, as does ‘The Raven Queen’ for the divine interloper from the Shadowfell.

‘Mapping the Multiverse’ explores some of the major locations and settings for Dungeons & Dragons. The first location is ‘Candlekeep’ in the Forgotten Realms, presented in rich colour and nicely annotated. It does seem an odd place to start, just a single location, as none of the other entries copy this. Thus, ‘Eberon’ includes a full map of the continent, again nicely marked up, whilst ‘The Sword Coast’ returns to the Forgotten Realms in similar fashion. The world of ‘Krynn’ is treated in similar fashion. ‘Anthologies’ looks back at the last decade of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition by highlighting some of the scenario collections that Wizards of the Coast has published, such as Keys from the Golden Vault or Tales from the Yawning Portal, whilst ‘Shadow of the Dragon Queen’ in ‘Campaign Spotlight’ looks at the return of Dungeons & Dragons to the world of Krynn and Dragonlance. The other entry in the ‘Campaign Spotlight’ sort of brings the numerous settings together with ‘Spelljammer: Adventures in Space’ which takes Dungeons & Dragons into deep space, and potentially to anyone of the settings presented in Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024.

The ‘Bestiary’ feature looks at numerous types of monsters in Dungeons & Dragons. Every entry tells the reader how dangerous the monster is, where it is found, what to watch out for, and their battle plan. The monsters covered include the undead, Illithids—Mind Flayers and the like, giants, and what it terms ‘The Classics’. These consist of the signature creatures of the Dungeons & Dragons game, the Gelatinous Cube, the Mimic, and the like.

The biggest features in the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 are ‘Meet the Creators’. These profile and interview players and creators who have taken their hobby and brought into the public sphere with a podcast. They include Shamini Bundell of RPGeeks, a podcast which combines Dungeons & Dragons with science and Science Fiction; Daniel Kwan from The Asians Represent Podcast is interviewed about Asian creators, representation, and what an Asian perspective brings to Dungeons & Dragons games that he runs; and Connie Chang, of the all-transgender, Person-of-Colour-led podcast, Transplanar, talks about running a campaign about love, yet set in a dark, apocalyptic world. All three of these podcasts have lasted more than the one season and the interviewees have a chance to reflect on how they started, the Player Characters, games played, and their opinions on Dungeons & Dragons. At four pages each, these interviews are the longest features in the annual—and easily its highlight, providing a different and far from unwelcome aspect on playing and creating for Dungeons & Dragons.

Elsewhere, ‘Beyond the Tabletop’ does what it says and look at the hobby away from the table. So ‘Conventions’ gives a very quick guide to the hobby’s big events like Pax and Gen Con, and though it is nice to see Dragonmeet, a convention in the UK, it seems curious not to include UK Games Expo, and ‘More Than a Game’ looks at aspects of the hobby in a similar fashion—cosplay, listening to actual play, miniatures, and more. Perhaps one of the most entertaining entries is ‘D&D in a Castle’, which looks at the event which takes places three times a year at Lumley Castle, a fourteenth century, hosting a long weekend of playing Dungeons & Dragons. It looks a lot of fun and perhaps the apogee of the progress made by the reader of Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 from his reading the first few pages, starting with ‘Quick Start Guide’. ‘Level Up Your Table’ suggests ways to enhance play, such as including ‘The Deck of Many Things’, though it does come with a warning about the derailing effect of its cards. It also ties into The Deck of Many Things release from Wizards of the Coast.

Like all British annuals, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 has puzzles. In previous editions, such puzzles—or ‘Activities’ as they are titled here—have been the simplest of retheming of perennial standbys, such as having to move the minimum number of matchsticks around to solve a puzzle or a maze or… To be blunt, they did not look much different to the puzzles found in other annuals for other intellectual properties. The puzzles in the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 are better and more strongly themed. They begin with ‘What Type of Player Are You?’, a classic quiz which determines what type of person you are, or this case what sort of roleplayer you are. It is a bit broad in its definitions, but that is the nature of such quizzes. There is also a maze, which is not easy, the wordsearch is done as a ‘Hex Crawl’ in which spell names have been hidden, the Sudoku-style puzzle substitutes symbols rather than numbers and comes in two levels, ‘Cryptograms’ provides a Dungeons & Dragons code-breaking task, and there is an ‘Intelligence Check’, a quiz about the roleplaying game’s lore, much of which is previously detailed in the book. In comparison to previous editions of the Dungeons & Dragons Annual, there are fewer puzzles and not only are they of higher quality, but they are also better themed. In the past the puzzles have always felt like a waste of space, but that is not the case here.

Physically, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 is solidly presented. There is plenty of full colour artwork drawn from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and the writing is clear and kept short, so is an easy read for its intended audience.

In past years, entries in the Dungeons & Dragons Annual series have proven to be decent enough introductions to Dungeons & Dragons, but did not always feel as if they were not written by authors who knew the world of Dungeons & Dragons very well. Fortunately, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 feels different. There is a strong focus on the worlds and worlds of Dungeons & Dragons, its settings and its villains, but coupled with a decent guide to getting started and taking the first steps. The interviews with the podcast creators really standout as showing how the hobby embraces and has the space for such a diverse range of creators, which means that players of different backgrounds can see themselves reflected in the hobby. Of course, for the veteran there is less in the pages of the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 that will be new and unless they are a collector of all things Dungeons & Dragons, this is not a book that they need on their bookshelves. As something to receive at Christmas (or not) in your Christmas stocking (or not), the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 is the best yet to be published by Harper Collins Publishers. It is informative and it is engaging, providing more and more useful details about the world of Dungeons & Dragons before the reader takes his first steps into actual play. It will be very difficult for the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2025 to improve on the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024.

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

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What is it?Skull Ruins: Tusk Riders Need Blood! is a scenario for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha which details an escort mission in which the Player Characters are tasked with guiding a Tusk Rider ‘ally’—or intelligence asset—of Queen Leika, along with his unruly boar tusker deep into unfriendly territory along the new border between Sartar and the Lunar Empire, where a blood sacrifice can be made.

It is a possible sequel to the scenario, ‘Defending Apple Lane’, from the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack.

It is also a guide to the Boarsbeard Clan, a clan whose members have either been kidnapped by Tusk Riders and instead of being sacrificed, were offered to the Dark Spirit of the Bloody Tusk cult, or whose ancestors were. Many of them are not simply Pig-Hsunchen, but Tusk Brother Wereboars! Plus, the Cult of Sawtooth, dedicated to a legendary renegade guardian of the Stinking Forest, whose members consist of a weird mix of Aldryami, Trolls, and Tusk Riders, many of whom serve as scouts.

It is a full colour, seventy-six page, 59.91 PDF.

The layout is tidy and it is very nicely illsutrated illustrated.
It needs a slight edit.
Where is it set?Skull Ruins: Tusk Riders Need Blood! begins in Clearwine, but will take the Player Characters north to cross The Creek and from there make their way to Skull Ruin in the Bone Hills near the boundary of the territory between Alda-Chur and Herongreen.
Who do you play?
Skull Ruins: Tusk Riders Need Blood! does not require any specific character type, but Player Characters who are capable warriors and a skilled negotiator are recommended, as is an Earth priestess.
What do you need?
Skull Ruins: Tusk Riders Need Blood! requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack, and the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary.
What do you get?Skull Ruins: Tusk Riders Need Blood! sets up an interesting moral quandary for the Player Characters. They are chosen by Queen Leika Blackspear of Colymar to escort a very strange ‘intelligence asset’ deep into the territories between liberated Northern Sartar and pro-Imperial Alda-Chur, newly disputed as a result of the Dragonrise. This ‘intelligence asset’ is Penjurlhi, a Tusk Rider, an ‘Aramite’ held captive by the Queen. (One option here is for Penjurlhi to have been captured by the Player Characters as a result of playing through ‘Defending Apple Lane’ from the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack.) Penjurlhi has knowledge of the secret routes that the Tusk Riders use to conduct their raids which he is willing to share with the Queen. Unfortunately, Penjurlhi is losing the connection he has with his Tusker and the giant boar is growing increasingly erratic and dangerous. The connection can be reforged, but this requires a sacrificial rite—including a blood sacrifice—at a secret location known as Skull Ruin. This is a series of caves in a snake-like hill and it is in possession of an infamous bandit called Gornorix.
The Player Characters have a chance to discuss the mission with the queen and her advisors before they leave as well as Penjurlhi. They must then travel their way north, arrange means of crossing The Creek, and from there make their way to Skull Ruin. Along the way, an encounter with a Troll warband reveals that the Player Characters are not the only ones interested in Skull Ruin, as Gornorix is holding one of their number captive. It is this Troll captive who will be the unwilling victim sacrificed as part of the ritual to reforge the connection between Penjurlhi and his Tusker.
The quandary for the Player Characters depends upon their views on blood sacrifice. Many cults practice it, but not necessarily with a sentient being. So do the Player Characters follow through with Queen Leika’s orders and let the Troll captive be sacrificed? Do they instead side with the Troll warband and antagonise first Gornorix and then Queen Laika? Or do they find another way of resolving the situation? Numerous options and their possible outcomes are discussed in some detail, helped by the clearly presented motivations of the various NPCs. Full stats are provided for all of the inhabitants of Skull Ruin and the Troll Warband, along with a guide to running the assault/defence of the Skull Mountain, depending upon whom the Player Characters side with. There is also a full list of random things to be found in the caves if the Player Characters have the opportunity and more importantly time—searching some locations can take hours!—to comb through every location. That said, there is a lot of treasure held at Skull Mountain and the adventure includes some nicely done magical items, such as the Plinth Stone Club, made from a piece of a shattered Dragonewt plinth stone, that either drains or transfers Magic Points or drains Rune Points!
The scenario is rounded off with a set of scenario hooks that the Game Master can develop as sequels. In addition, the scenario details the Boarsbeard Clan, whose members are tolerated by both Heortlings and Tusk Riders and are often used as intermediaries between both. The strange Cult of Sawtooth, based in the Stinking Forest, is also fully detailed. Both Boarsbeard Clan and the Cult of Sawtooth should provide a ready source of interesting, often powerful NPCs. The very full Cult of Sawtooth write-up is accompanied with some advice on how to use it and some adventure ideas as well.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Skull Ruins: Tusk Riders Need Blood! is an excellent scenario which requires careful roleplaying and negotiation upon the part of the Player Characters, whilst still having plenty of scope for combat and action, as well as a moral dilemma at its heart. (The extra background is a bonus.)No—Skull Ruins: Tusk Riders Need Blood! is a challenging scenario morally and the Player Characters may not want to have to deal with blood sacrifice. Plus the Game Master may not be running a campaign in Sartar.Maybe—Skull Ruins: Tusk Riders Need Blood! is a challenging scenario morally and one reason it may not be easy to set up because the Player Characters did not capture a Tusk Rider in ‘Defending Apple Lane’ from RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack, and instead killed them all!

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: Flash Cthulhu – Fruit from the DustPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael Reid

Setting: Oklahoma, 1936Product: One-Location, One-Hour Scenario
What You Get: Eight page, 1.61 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Cherry trees will blossom every year; But I'll disappear for good, One of these days.” – Philip WhalenPlot Hook: Is the tree growing in the Dustbowl a miracle?Plot Support: Staging advice, three NPCs, and four pre-generated Investigators.Production Values: Decent
Pros# Short, sharp confrontation# Fructopobia# Dendrophobia# Kerasiphobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# Feels like the culmination of a fuller investigation# Violence the likely outcome
Conclusion# Short, sharp bloody hour of horror over hope# Not effective as other Flash Cthulhu titles because the Investigators start from outside the situation rather than from within and are less emotionally invested

The fortunes of the Empire have always ebbed and flowed with rebellion and repression and restoration. An Imperial Governor deciding to throw off the shackles of Imperial control and declaring independence, only for his rebellion to be crushed and he be replaced by a political opponent. Always on the Periphery of the Empire and always following this pattern until a cascade of rebellions began The Session Wars. The Imperials had industrial and economic might manifested in superior training and technology, the Periphery had numbers and zeal. The August Throne also had time and it picked and pecked at the alliances between the rebellious new states, defeating each in turn until years later, the last free Kingdom of the West, Orinost, stood alone, the engineering geniuses at the Engineering school at the University of Alsdolan, the so-called Circle of Iron, used their advances in technology, especially Cog Science, to withstand the Imperial assault. This, combined with the efforts of the Clever Folk of the Far West and the Grand Masters and Legends of the Dust Road, to harry and undermine the efforts of the Imperial forces, enabled Orinost to hold out for three more years and so create its own legend along those of many of its great defenders. Ultimately, the two sides would clash at the battle of Ash Ford which would see men and women capable of shattering mountainsides with their bare hands battle each other, thousands killed, and Orinost defeated, yet the Emperor, in his wisdom, came to terms. The rebels were allowed to enter exile on the condition that they never took up arms against the Emperor again. So they fled West as far as they could from the Empire back East. They took the Dust Road over the border beyond the Periphery and the Last Horizon, and so into the Far West.

Yet the Far West is not quite as wild and barbarous as Imperial propaganda might say it is. The trains of the Chartered Houses, each led by a great Steam Baron, run far to fortified towns within territory, bringing goods and people to the new land; the people value their honour and courteous to a fault lest they insult one another; and the Marshals, empowered by the Chartered Houses to bring Imperial Law and ‘justice’, are known for the masks they wear which keep their faces hidden as much as for hunting down and executing the bandits which infest the region, though their reputation for ruthlessness has made them equally as feared. Then there is ‘The Dust Road’, a path rather than a road, walked by the Clever Folk, those whose knowledge and skill, whether in the arts, engineering, or sciences, and especially in the martial arts of kung-fu, transcend that of ordinary men. They can manipulate ink to blind their opponents, stand upon one spot unmoving no matter how much force is brought upon them for they will shatter first, make any object as sharp as a sword or as strong as steel to withstand a blow from a sword, target the humours of an opponent and so upset his equilibrium, shoot opposing bullets out of the air, and so on. Heroes or villains, they upset the natural order of things and so are not to be trusted, as thirty years since the battle of Ash Ford, the Empire eyes the lands beyond the Periphery with greed, the Chartered Houses plot to expand their economic grasp, and bandit armies strike fear into settlements large and small in the Far West.

This is the set-up for Far West: Western Wuxia Mash Up Adventure Game. Published by Adamant Entertainment, it is undeniably one of the most notorious roleplaying games of the modern age. Not because it is bad or its subject matter is contentious or its designer has expressed himself or done anything that could be regarded as inappropriate. No, it is notorious because it is late—and not just late, very late. In fact, to fair, very, very late. A decade late. In the past this would not have been an issue, but Far West was among the first roleplaying games to be funded via Kickstarter and to raise what was then a lot of money in doing so. In other words, its supporters put their money into the project and did not receive the much-promised book—until now, that is. Funded via Kickstarter on August 25th, 2011, it has taken almost thirteen years to bring the book to fruition. In that time, the designer, Gareth-Michael Skarka, has suffered illness and difficulties, least of which is the damage to his reputation, the roleplaying game has undergone a drastic redesign, and there have been numerous delays. Finally, with the assistance of Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Far West has seen print. To say all of this is not to attack the designer, but rather to give context and an understanding of the history of Far West. Yet the author barely addresses the issue in the book and certainly does not go so far as to apologise or offer a mea culpa for those delays, though his introduction to Far West would certainly have been the place to put that on record.

If anyone has had the patience to wait the thirteen years for the book, then they certainly owe Pinnacle Entertainment a debt of gratitude for helping the designer get Far West into the hands of the remaining Kickstarter backers and to T.S. Luikart, for working with the designer to complete the roleplaying game. Then with the book now out, the designer can at least put the project behind him, and those who waited for it, discover whether that wait has been worth the final product.

As the title suggests, Far West: Western Wuxia Mash Up Adventure Game combines two genres. One is the Old West of the post-Civil War United States, the other the Jianghu, the world of martial artists and the Wuxia genre of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Warring States period of Chinese history. More specifically for the first genre, it draws upon the Spaghetti Western rather than the Wild West, with stories set along the border between Mexico and the United States of America. This brings what is called a Castalan—in other words, a Hispanic—aspect to the setting. The combination of the Spaghetti Western and Wuxia genres also means that the traditional displaced native peoples typically found in the latter do not appear in Far West. In some ways Far West feels tonally very much like the television series Firefly, although without the Science Fiction elements. However, with the addition of Cog Science, Far West is also a Steampunk roleplaying game.

A Hero or Player Character, one of the Clever Folk, in Far West is defined by his Rank, Attributes, Background, Occupation, Skills, Spirit and Aspects, Edges and Flaws, and Allegiance. Rank, from Novice to Legend determines how many dice a player has to assign to Attributes and Skills, the number of Kung Fu Forms he knows and how much Spirit he can have. The seven Attributes are Reflexes, Strength, Wits, Toughness, Presence, Knack, and Kung Fu. Of these, Knack is a measure of aptitude with tools and technology, whilst Kung Fu represents how good he is in the special forms of martial arts. Background, such as ‘Back East—The Empire’ or ‘The Rolling Steppes’, and Occupations like ‘Artist’, ‘Gambler’, ‘Hired Gun’, ‘Lotus Girl/Willing Lad’, and ‘Wrangler’ all provide bonuses to skills.
Aspects are descriptive elements of a character. They can include relationships, beliefs, descriptions, catchphrases, distinctive possessions, tied to Advantages and Disadvantages. In play, a player can spend Spirit to Tag an Aspect, bring it into play and gain two bonus Wild Dice to a roll, whereas the Narrator can compel an Aspect, bring it into play, forcing the Player Character to act against his best interests or simply earn a penalty to roll. In return, the Player Character is rewarded with Spirit. It is possible for one Player Character to Tag another and so gain the Wild Dice bonus. One advantage of tagging an Aspect is if the roll is successful. If so, the Spirit spent to Tag the Aspect is refunded, but if the roll is a failure, the Spirit is lost. A player can refuse an attempt to Compel an Aspect, but this will cost Spirit to do so. Aspects can also be built into scenes to be Tagged or Compelled. An Aspect can also be Tagged after a roll, but this does not gain the two extra Wild Dice, instead allowing a reroll.

Spirit is a Hero’s inner power or life force. It is based on the value of his Attributes and Kung Fu dice. Divided into Permanent Spirit and Temporary Spirit. Permanent Spirit is reduced to learn Kung Fu styles, whilst Temporary Spirit is used to add dice to rolls, Tag Aspects, and so on. A Hero has an Aspect each from his Background, Occupation, highest and lowest Attributes, and Rank. The Background and Occupation Aspects must be selected from virtues of the Dust Road. These are altruism, justice, individualism, loyalty, courage, truthfulness, disregard for wealth, and desire for glory, and one must be negative and one positive. Edges, such as ‘Blinding Speed’, ‘Deadly Aim’, and ‘Fortune Of The Celestial Monkey’, are purchased by spending Skill dice, whilst a Hero can add to his Skill dice by choosing Flaws like ‘Addlepated’, ‘Debt’, and ‘Thick As A Stump’.

Kung Fu is different in that its four skills are determined by the Kung Fu Attribute. The four Skills are External Kung Fu, which focuses on physical power and agility with direct, explosive attacks; Gateways Kung Fu is about the flow of Spirit along meridians within the human body to the points where they intersect at gateways or pressure points, which can be disrupted to cause paralysis or even death; Internal Kung Fu is about the flow of Spirit within the practitioner’s own body to harden the flesh against attacks, expel Spirit as attacks, and master balance and leverage; and Lightness Kung Fu is about the manipulation of the practitioner’s own body weight to be able to walk along walls, leap over roofs, and move swiftly and lightly.

Allegiance can be to an organisation, a belief system, nation, or a philosophy, and in play, mechanically, it can be Tagged or Compelled like any other Aspect. The default Allegiance is to a Clan, but a Hero can also be a Drifter in which case he suffers interaction penalties when dealing with any Clan. Some Clans are secret like the ‘lotus girls’ and ‘willing boys’ of the Foxglove Society, a clan of assassins, or secretive, such as the ‘Brotherhood of Steel and Song’, the solitary Mariachi. Others are more obvious, such as the Iron Dragons, which work the rails back and forth across the Far West, whilst the Jade Family are nomadic con artists, beggars, thieves, entertainers, and fortune-tellers who take ‘Jade’ as their surname to indicate membership. Every Clan is described in some detail, including its background, philosophy, fighting styles used, organisation, symbol, and benefits.

The actual process of creating a Hero is a matter of assigning dice to both Attributes and Skills, and making choices. It is not a difficult process, but it is a daunting one because of the array of choices possible and the lack of advice when it comes to those choices. There are templates at the back of the book, but they are bare bones and there is no complete example of the Hero creation process—there are lots of little examples—and then the player has the problem of tying his Hero into the setting. This is compounded by the sheer number of Kung Fu styles to choose from—there are over eighty! The question is, which Kung Fu style goes with what concept or background? Which Kung Fu styles can be used with melee weapons or firearms? Perhaps it would have been helpful if some archetypes had been given, complete with Aspects, Kung Fu styles, and origins to tie them to the roleplaying game’s setting, both to illustrate and sell the setting?

Name: Mathias Pouke
Rank: Initiate
Background: Back East—The Empire
Occupation: Artist (Journalist)
Allegiance: The Wandering Stars
Spirit: 16 Permanent, 9 Temporary
Aspects: Individualism (Not From Around These Parts), Desire For Glory (Something to Prove), Fingers & Thumbs, A Way With Words, The Cat’s With Me
Edges & Flaws: Animal Ally (Cat, her name is Fence), Famous (Chronicler of the Far West), Debt
Kung Fu Styles: Brushless Sight Stroke, Fluttering Fist, Quivering Palm)
Reflexes 4D (Dodge 1D)
Strength 2D (Running 1D)
Wits 4D+2 (Artist 2D+2, Bureaucracy 1D, Gambling 1D, Investigation 2D, Scholar 1D+1, Streetwise 1D)
Toughness 3D
Presence 4D+2 (Animal Handling 1D+1, Bargain 1D+1, Charm 1D+1, Persuasion 1D)
Knack 2D (Lockpicking 1D)
Kung Fu 4D (External 1D, Gateway 1D, Internal 2D)

In terms of rules, Far West: Western Wuxia Mash Up Adventure Game is also a combination of two mechanics. The core rules are the D6Plus system, which uses pools of six-sided dice and which is a development of the mechanics first seen in Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, published by West End Games in 1987. The other is the storytelling or narrative Tagging and Compelling of Aspects as seen in FATE. The D6Plus system measures everything in terms of how many six-sided dice it has, primarily attributes and skills. It can have a bonus of +1 or +2, but never +3 or more. If an attribute or skill has a bonus increased to +3, it is instead increased by a whole extra die. A player will be typically rolling a number of dice equal to the rating of the attribute or skill, adding the results of all the dice, aiming to beat a Difficulty Number. An Easy Difficulty Number is roughly five or more, Easy ten, Moderate fifteen, Difficult twenty, and so on. Bonuses and penalties can apply from the situation, equipment used, or other factors.

When the dice are rolled, one die must be of a different colour. This is the Wild Die. If the result on the Wild Die is a one, it indicates a Critical Failure, whilst a roll of six on the Wild Die is a Critical Success and the player can roll the Wild Die again and keep adding as long as the Wild Die result is a six. If a Critical Success is rolled and a roll of one occurs, it does not mean that a Critical Failure has been rolled. A Critical Failure either negates the result of the highest die rolled or a complication occurs, the severity of which is determined by the Narrator, the suggestion being to make it lean into comic relief rather than necessarily being deadly. There are some suggestions for complications for the Narrator to use, such as “One of the characters kills a bandit. Unfortunately, the bandit was preparing to throw a stick of dynamite. The characters have only a few seconds to act before the dynamite explodes...” and it is suggested that the Narrator also write possible Complications into scenes and encounters in her scenarios. Additional Wild Dice can be added to a dice pool by spending Spirit.

An optional rule allows for ‘Joss’ or extra luck in a dice roll, but after the roll has been made. This counts doubles in the roll. If the doubles are low, the Hero suffers ‘Bad Joss’ and the situation does not turn out in his favour, whilst if they are high, the Hero has ‘Good Joss’ and the situation does turn out in favour. Where the ‘Joss’ rule is interesting is that it is possible to fail a roll and still have ‘Good Joss’ or a roll to succeed and suffer ‘Bad Joss’. This is the equivalent narratively of ‘Yes, but’ and ‘No, but…’.

If a roll is a success, the amount by which the roll succeeded is called ‘Result Points’. These are used to add bonuses to future rolls, like damage and defensive rolls, sets the length of time for an effect or the complexity of later tasks. In some cases, the whole value of the Result Points is not used. For example, it is halved as a bonus for the Hero’s next roll and divided by five for the damage bonus.

For all the simplicity of the D6Plus system, combat in Far West is comparatively complex. Ranged combat is straightforward enough, a simple skill roll versus range, but close combat is not. Skills rolls are made against the difficulty of wielding the weapon used, brawling attacks are always very easy, whilst each Kung Fu style has its own Difficulty value. However, all of these Difficulty values can be replaced if a defendant decides to use the Dodge skill to avoid the blow, the Melee or Brawling skill to parry, or a Kung Fu style with a defensive element. This turns combats into a series of opposed rolls. Modifiers adjust the number dice to be rolled due to range, cover, protection, the type of manoeuvre, and hit location. There are also penalties for multiple actions, these being very likely if a defendant wants to avoid or stop an attack. Add into this the some eighty of so Kung Fu styles and that is a lot to take into consideration. Obviously, not all eighty Kung Fu styles are going to be used in single combat, but with four Heroes, which is twelve that the Narrator needs to be aware of before she even considers those for the NPCs.

Duels—which work for both the Western and the Wuxia side of Far West—are actually neatly done with ‘The Showdown’ rules. This is divided into two phases. In the ‘Stare-Down’ phase, in which the participants make opposed Intimidation (or Prescence) rolls. The ‘Stare-Down’ can last multiple rounds during which the participants attempt to roll higher than the other. The loser always chooses when the ‘Stare-Down’ ends and the winner then uses the Result Points from his total rolls to modify his initiative roll in the ‘Quickdraw’ phase. This gives the winner an advantage as otherwise he would have to use dice from his weapon skill to modify his initiative.

Damage comes the weapon used, plus the Strength Attribute if a melee weapon, and Kung Fu style if appropriate. This is opposed by the defending combatant’s Toughness, with Result Points determining the effect of the damage done. A stunned combatant suffers a die penalty to all actions, a wounded one is knocked to the floor, and if the Result Points are sufficient, the defender can be killed. Damage options include substituting severe injuries instead of outright killing someone and there are descriptions given for narrative damage. Combat is surprisingly deadly, and a player may want to spend Spirit Points to temporarily increase his Hero’s Toughness or he can reduce damage on a one-for-one basis.

The setting itself is supported with a solid section of arms, equipment, goods, and services, and it is here that the Cog Science is covered. Each device has a Scale ranging from Character to Huge, plus the various dice bonuses it provides, bonuses and limitations, skill required for its use, and so on. This can include adding Aspects to the Cog device. The Cog Science skill is required to build any device and a player works with the Narrator to determine what it does and what its total value is. The value indicates how many days the device will take to complete, whilst the Narrator works out how much it will cost based on the cost of other devices given in the book. To compare, a Pocket Tracker has a value of twenty-three versus the fifty-one of a Repeating Rifle. Numerous example devices are given, but the few pages here—just eight—barely scratches the surface of this aspect of Far West. The guidelines are serviceable, but not spectacular. Arguably, Cog Science could have done with a chapter all of its very own.

A fifth of the book is dedicated to the setting of Far West, its history, geography, culture, common means of travel and communication, and more. This includes how the peace is kept, how business is done, what entertainments and medicines are available, what faiths are followed, festivals celebrated, and so on. There is quite a lot here and it also includes a Far West lexicon. It is, however, all quite broad in its detail, as there is a lot to cover. The Narrator is given a chapter of her own which really introduces the two genres of the roleplaying game properly and gives some pointers as to the elements of both. The advice highlights the parallels between the Wuxia and the Spaghetti Western genres and it is these parallels which bring the two genres together. There is decent advice on what types of adventures can be run in the setting as well as campaign ideas, and some suggestions on legendary weapons and Kung Fu manuals—the latter being one of the primary ways in which to learn more Kung Fu styles, the creation of other Clans, and a random adventure generator as well as some hooks throughout the Narrator section. Add in the random settlement generator and the Narrator is given the tools to create the bare bones of her own scenarios. That said, a starting adventure would not have gone amiss.

Overall, the rules for Far West are at best serviceable, rather than exciting. The D6Plus system is generic and leaves the Tagging and Compelling of Aspects to do a lot of work in terms of bringing the setting to life mechanically. In fact, the combination of a nearly forty-year-old game system with a more modern one—and even that is a decade old—feels creaky. It does not help that Critical Successes are undeveloped, doing no more than allowing extra dice rolls, in comparison to the attention paid to Critical Failures. The Hero creation process is hindered by a lack of a fuller example and archetypes which could have showcased what was possible in terms of character types. Similarly, whilst there are lots of little examples of the rules and combat, there is no one big example of play or combat which would have showcased everything in action, which in the case of the latter would have helped the Narrator understand the complexities of the combat system.

Physically, Far West is, in general, well presented, being vibrant and exciting in terms of much of its art. Yet the editing could have been tighter and the artwork is not without its problems. Notably, one of the pieces that illustrates Cog Science is directly inspired by Lego Technic. Then there is the issue of representation, of which Far West is a victim of its own Kickstarter campaign. One of the pledges, ‘Grand Master of the Dust Road’, enabled backers to submit a photograph which would be turned into a portrait in the setting and book. Consequently, the resulting artwork reflects the backers and reflects the gaming hobby as it was in 2011, so there are a lot of Caucasian faces and there are a lot of stocky, bespectacled male faces* within the book. This does not mean that Persons of Colour, whether Black or Chinese, or as well as women, are not represented in the artwork. They are. However, whether they are represented enough is another matter. What is clear is that a lot of the better artwork—and there is a marked divide in quality—does depict male Caucasian faces. Again, this is not intentional, but rather the consequences of the Kickstarter campaign.
* To be fair, I am one of them.

Ultimately, it is great to have Far West: Western Wuxia Mash Up Adventure Game in the backers’ hands. They have waited a long time. Has the wait been worth it? With regard to what they may have pledged for on the Kickstarter campaign, probably not, since the book itself does not feel very special. Mechanically, arguably not, since Far West underwhelms and simply does not do enough in terms of its rules to bring the setting and game to life, and against that, there are a lot of little aspects of the game, primarily the many styles of Kung Fu, which complicate play and make it just a bit more fiddly. In terms of look, debatable, but then to be fair, there are mitigating circumstances. In terms of setting, arguably, yes. The concept of a Western/Wuxia mash-up is still an intriguing, even enthralling combination, a great vehicle for action and storytelling even thirteen years on. That is perhaps where Far West: Western Wuxia Mash Up Adventure Game shines, in its core concepts and parallel genres rather than its execution. Overall, Far West: Western Wuxia Mash Up Adventure Game is not a disaster ten years in the making and it is playable with some effort upon the part of both the Narrator and her players, but it does show its age in very many ways.

The Religious Crimes Task Force is a shitshow, a dead end for any federal agent with ambitions or hopes of a better career. Established by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate and prosecute fraud and abuse in tax-exempt religious institutions, in effect it does no such thing. Instead, it alerts religious organisations that they are running foul of the law and might be in danger of having charges brought against them by the Federal authorities. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the head of the taskforce would not have it any other way as it prevents the government’s ‘persecution’ of white Evangelical Christians. For its investigators, it means rolling into small towns across the USA, investigating some small church and its congregation, and discovering that yet one more fringe, possibly cult-like organisation is effectively harmless. The Religious Crimes Task Force is effectively a smokescreen, but it is a smokescreen that Delta Green can take advantage of. It can flag up reports that suggest a religious organisation might be breaking the tax laws, but which to its analysts’ eyes might be connected to an Unnatural threat, and then have Federal agents wholly unconnected to the Delta Green program investigate, and if they uncover anything worthy of Delta Green’s attention, then it can send in its own experienced agents to deal with the issue. If the investigating agents survive the experience and are judicious in their reporting of it, then they may be suitable for recruitment. It is thus a smokescreen not once, but twice.

This is the set-up for Meridian, a scenario published by Arc Dream Publishing for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. This is the modern roleplaying game of conspiratorial and Lovecraftian investigative horror with its conspiratorial agencies within the United States government investigating, confronting, and covering up the Unnatural. It is ideally used as an introductory investigation with perhaps two or three Player Characters. To that end it includes three pre-generated Player Characters—two Agents and an optional character. The Two Agents consist of an FBI agent and an IRS investigator, whilst the optional character is a local social worker, who can either be a Player Character or an NPC. All three are possible recruits to Delta Green, the social worker as a Delta Green friendly. This set-up is not dissimilar to Control Group, the anthology of scenarios designed to create a pool of diverse Delta Green agents with varied origins and introductions to the Unnatural who can then go on to conduct investigations in secret for the conspiratorial organisation. So, Meridian can be used as an addition to that supplement or as a means to explain the addition of new agents to a campaign. To that end, the Unnatural element to the scenario is surprisingly low key.
The scenario is nominally set in the summer of 2018 as the Agents roll into Joplin, Missouri where the Kansas-Missouri-Oklahoma borders meet. They have been assigned to investigate Holy Light Ministries, which files taxes as both a church and shelter for troubled youth, but does not own any property, has just the one officer, the church leader, Daniel Boone Keeler, and uses a mailing address that is actually that of Keeler’s mother. Keeler himself has a criminal record of petty offences going back years, but that halted in 2011. The question is, is Keeler just some small-time preacher and hustler on the make or is there actual legitimacy to his church. The answer to that is yes, there is actual legitimacy to his church, but this being a scenario for Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, not in any way that you would think was anything other than Unnatural.
Just as the three states of Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma seem to overlap, so do the jurisdictions that the Agents have to work. So not just Federal law enforcement, but also local and possibly state, and then Missouri Department of Social Services, because not only does Keeler have a long record with both, but his Holy Light Ministries seems to be primarily concerned with ‘troubled’ youths—teenagers and young adults. A malaise lingers over Joplin, a miasma of economic deprivation, hopelessness, improvidence, and drug addiction which the Agents must navigate in the course of their investigation, but as they make progress, they discover that Holy Light Ministries does offer something. Possibly hope, possibly respite, and a sense of joy in god that transcends earthly, pharmaceutical addiction. Not necessarily though a Christian joy in god, since Keeler does not proselytise in the traditional fashion. Even the run down and dilapidated church he operates out of is more a refuge than a place of worship. As the Agents conduct interview after interview, what also comes up is the mention of the ‘Ghostlight’, a local legend which dates back to the 1940s, red-orange ball of light that appears in the skies at night over the woods on the Oklahoma-Missouri border. Is this what Delta Green wanted investigating? Is the ‘light’ of Holy Light Ministries one and the same as the ‘light’ of ‘Ghostlight’?
The underplayed nature of the investigation in Meridian also means that there is a passivity which runs throughout the scenario. In part, this includes the authorities, but it definitely includes Keeler and the Holy Light Ministries as well as the nature of the Unnatural in Meridian. Unlike in other scenarios for Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, the Unnatural in Meridian is not an active force, but rather one that welcomes you to it and embraces you in hope. This makes it no less dangerous and frightening.
Physically, Meridian is well done. The artwork is excellent, though unfortunately the maps, done on aerial photographs with swathes of green forest are difficult to read.
Meridian is an easy scenario to run, though more so as an introduction to the conspiratorial world of Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game rather than as a campaign addition. It is run through with a meek malleability and horrific hopelessness, both in the Agents’ current assignment and the teenagers of Joplin, that will ultimately lead the Agents coming to realise that any sense of hope is hideously tied to the Unnatural.

How do you like your GM Screen?

The GM Screen is a essentially a reference sheet, comprised of several card sheets that fold out and can be stood up to serve another purpose, that is, to hide the GM's notes and dice rolls. On the inside, the side facing the GM are listed all of the tables that the GM might want or need at a glance without the need to have to leaf quickly through the core rulebook. On the outside, facing the players, can be found either more tables for their benefit or representative artwork for the game itself. This is both the basic function and the basic format of the screen, neither of which has changed all that much over the years. Beyond the basic format, much has changed though.

To begin with the general format has split, between portrait and landscape formats. The result of the landscape format is a lower screen, and if not a sturdier screen, than at least one that is less prone to being knocked over. Another change has been in the weight of card used to construct the screen. Exile Studios pioneered a new sturdier and durable screen when its printers took two covers from the Hollow Earth Expedition core rule book and literally turned them into the game’s screen. This marked a change from the earlier and flimsier screens that had been done in too light a cardstock, and several publishers have followed suit.

Once you have decided upon your screen format, the next question is what you have put with it. Do you include a poster or poster map, such as Chaosium, Inc.’s last screen for Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition or Margaret Weis Productions’ Serenity and BattleStar Galactica Roleplaying Games? Or a reference work like that included with Chessex Games’ Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune or the GM Resource Book for Pelgrane Press’ Trail of Cthulhu? Perhaps scenarios such as ‘Blackwater Creek’ and ‘Missed Dues’ from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition? Or even better, a book of background and scenarios as well as the screen, maps, and forms, like that of the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack also published by Chaosium, Inc. In the past, the heavier and sturdier the screen, the more likely it is that the screen will be sold unaccompanied, such as those published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment for the Starblazer Adventures: The Rock & Roll Space Opera Adventure Game and Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG. That though is no longer the case and stronger and sturdier GM Screens are the norm today.

So how do I like my GM Screen?

I like my Screen to come with something. Not a poster or poster map, but a scenario, which is one reason why I like ‘Descent into Darkness’ from the Game Master’s Screen and Adventure for Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition and ‘A Bann Too Many’, the scenario that comes in the Dragon Age Game Master's Kit for Green Ronin Publishing’s Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5. I also like my screen to come with some reference material, something that adds to the game. Which is why I am fond of both the Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune as well as the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack. It is also why I like the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit published by by Modiphius Entertainment for use with Achtung! Cthulhu, the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic in a secret war against the Nazis in World War 2.
Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit—heralded as ‘Issue No. 3’ in a series on the cover—comes with a four-panel screen and a Gamemaster’s Toolkit booklet that contains tools and advice on running a campaign that enables the Game Master to prepare a scenario or create elements as play proceeds. The Gamemaster’s Screen itself is a handsome four panel affair, sturdy as is standard for the hobby today, but in portrait format rather than landscape. This is not as easy a format to use, plus it does have a much imposing presence at the table. One part of the front replicates the cover to the  Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, but expands left and right to depict the signature characters from Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 escaping from a German schloss as Lovecraftian nasties attempt to impede their progress! It is an exciting, action-packed illustration.

On the inside, working from left to right, tables summarise task Difficulty, Enemy Level, Attribute Bonuses, Complication Range, and Weapon Range. This is followed by narrative-related tables for the Conventional German Forces, Nazi Occult Forces, Ahhorrent Creatures and Monstrosities, Mythos Gods, and Elite Nemeses in the middle. On the right-hand side the tables for both Weapon Effects and Weapon Qualities are listed, followed by Conflict Momentum Spends and Item Restrictions. It is all clearly laid out and easy to read and use. However, none of the tables have page references to either the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide or the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide, which have made things just a little easier for the Game Master. Then there is the issue of the narrative-related tables for the Conventional German Forces, Nazi Occult Forces, Ahhorrent Creatures and Monstrosities, Mythos Gods, and Elite Nemeses in the middle. Was this the best use of the one-and-a-half panels that these tables take up? Well, no and more so because these tables are reprinted from the Gamemaster’s Toolkit. So no tables for the ‘Challenge Dice Result’, weapons tables, ‘ Spell Complication Range’, ‘Bonus Power’, and ‘Magical Momentum Spends’ from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide or the ‘Secret Weapons of the Secret War’ and ‘Guide to Hazard Stress & Threat Costs’ tables from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide. Although there is probably not the space for all of these tables on the screen, the inclusion of some of them would have been more use than the ones actually included.
On the inside, working from left to right, tables sumarise task Difficulty, Enemy Level, Attribute Bonuses, Complication Range, and Weapon Range. This is followed by narrative-related tables for the Conventional German Forces, Nazi Occult Forces, Ahhorrent Creatures and Monstrosities, Mythos Gods, and Elite Nemeses in the middle. On the right-hand side the tables for both Weapon Effects and Weapon Qualities are listed, followed by Conflict Momentum Spends and Item Restrictions. It is all clearly laid out and easy to read and use. However, none of the tables have page references to either the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide or the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide, which have made things just a little easier for the Game Master. Then there is the issue of the narrative-related tables for the Conventional German Forces, Nazi Occult Forces, Ahhorrent Creatures and Monstrosities, Mythos Gods, and Elite Nemeses in the middle. Was this the best use of the one-and-a-half panels that these tables take up? Well, no and morse so because these tables are reprinted from the Gamemaster’s Toolkit. So no tables for the ‘Challenge Dice Result’, weapons tables, ‘ Spell Complication Range’, ‘Bonus Power’, and ‘Magical Momentum Spends’ from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide or the ‘Secret Weapons of the Secret War’ and ‘Guide to Hazard Stress & Threat Costs’ tables from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide. Any one of these tables could have been more useful than the ones included.
The Gamemaster’s Toolkit builds on the advice given in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, focusing on the creation of scenarios and campaigns. This begins with possible inspirations, suggestions being as diverse as Band of Brothers and ’Allo! ’Allo!, before looking at possible titles for the Game Master’s scenario and giving prompts aplenty in terms of background, battles, starting parameters and overarching plot concepts, and then options in terms of antagonists and other NPCs. So the rolls begin with a ‘Story Frame’ and an ‘Overarching Plot Concept’. So the Plot Hook and the Draw might be ‘A passing acquaintance’ who ‘Sends a threat’ and the Plot Concept is to ‘Recover or destroy a long lost tome’ to ‘Save the world’. To this, the Game Master can add requirements to fulfil the plot and location, detail NPCs, before setting up the opening scene and developing the plot with further scenes. The ‘Classified’ section goes goals and aims to draw the Player Characters in and then the tables for villains and heroes, and more. There are tables too for Spells and Manuscripts, Rituals, Book and Tomes, and Artefacts. All of this is drawn from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, which the Game Master will need to refer to in order flesh with further details. The tables throughout are accompanied by advice on how to use them, all of decent, if basic advice.
Physically, the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit is well presented. The screen itself is sturdy and easy to use, whilst the Gamemaster’s Toolkit is clean and tidy and easy to read. If there is an issue, it is that the Game Master will need a bag in which to store its various parts and not lose them!
The Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit is useful, but it simply is not as useful as it could be. The advice and the tables in the Gamemaster’s Toolkit are undeniably useful, but what makes the supplement as a whole less useful is the inclusion of the tables from the Gamemaster’s Toolkit book on the screen. They can be used in play to add narrative, but there are mechanical and rules tables which could have been included and the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit would have been far more useful.

One of the richest silver mines in the known world stands dormant, its workers having downed tools and gone on strike. The miners refuse to work because they say that the mine turned on them after they dug a shaft too deep, killing several of their number, and trapping others. The owner of the mine has ordered the guards to force the miners back to work, and may even hire outside muscle—that is, the Player Characters—to assist. This, though, is only one of the reasons why the Player Characters might want to visit one of the richest silver mines in the known world. Others might be that they simply want to take advantage of the standoff to mine some silver for themselves, a child needs rescuing from the mine, the local justice of the peace has posted a bounty on outlaws said to hiding in the mine, a rival to the mine owner wants the mine shut down, going into find the trapped miners, and so on. All of these can be combined, mixed, or matched to motivate the Player Characters into investigating the mine at the heart of Meanderings of the Mine Mind. This is an introductory scenario for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Designed for low Level Player Characters, it is not as necessarily lethal as other titles from the publisher, but it is no less weird.

Meanderings of the Mine Mind is, like other releases for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, set in the roleplaying game’s default period of the seventeenth century, the early modern era. This makes it easy to adapt Meanderings of the Mine Mind to other retroclones, but there are historical elements in the scenario—the appearance of Neanderthals, Romans, and Nazis—which are unlikely to fit every Game Master’s campaign world. Once past the standoff between the guards and the striking miners, the mine itself is actually quite small, just eight caves and tunnels. Each is decently described with the details of any NPCs and particular points within each area, either an item or particular location. Where there is a particular location in a cave or tunnel, they are not marked on the map, despite the organisation of cave and tunnel suggesting that they should be. This is not helpful, especially given that the scenario is designed to be an introduction to Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. Plus, it means that the maps feel empty and bland.

In exploring the mine, the Player Characters will discover the missing miners often in strange situations and also a series of strange tableaus, one from the deep past, one from the more recent past, and one from the point of view of the Player Characters, the future. These consist of a band of Neanderthal hunters trapped by a cave bear, a surprisingly mundane Roman orgy, and a band of World War 2 German soldiers led by a member of the SS. What connects them are location of mine itself and its caves, and its true nature as well as the source of rich seams of silver that run through it. The shafts that have been dug into the bedrock of the mine and rich seams of silver that have been mined from that rock turn out to be tunnels bored into the fossilised remains of a great ancient spawn from the stars and the silver the highly conductive nerves that thread through the creature’s brain in its last dying moments. Moments that last aeons… As the miners smashed their picks into the sliver nerve-seams, their blows reverberated up and down their length, triggering synapses, and causing the alien star mind to pulsate and in its death throes bring memories past and future into their weird realities.

As an adventure, Meanderings of the Mine Mind is quite small, consisting of just eight locations, so whilst it is a very rich mine, it is also a small one. There is mention of a second level to the mine, but this left up to the Game Master to develop. One issue with there being a second level is how it is possible for the upper level to flood as the text suggests. It may well be better that there is a chance of the Player Characters being swept by the waters towards the lower level or simply the whole adventure being shifted to the lower level. One big feature of the adventure is the ‘What Happens When A Silver Vein Is Tapped?’ table, which provides numerous random and weird effects such as a Player Character becoming irrevocably attracted to another alien god after an erotic vision or losing a spell or e memory. Another feature is more traditional to Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, and that is, ‘meddle at your peril’. The Player Characters are likely to blunder into situations, attempt to resolve them, and discover that their meddling has only made them worse… There is the chance that this will happen more than once and potentially shorten the scenario. Similarly, blundering about is not necessarily going to resolve the whole situation in the mine, though it is likely to be more entertaining.

Apart from the issue with the maps, where Meanderings of the Mine Mind has a problem is in addressing one of the motivations for exploring the mine—mining for silver. There is no suggested value for the amount of silver that the Player Characters could dig out and no suggested value for how much they might raise from selling it. This is compounded by the inclusion of a ‘diamond encrusted pickaxe’ which enables a miner to dig out ore without triggering the weird effects that would otherwise happen if using normal mining tools. It serves an obvious purpose in terms of the Player Characters’ exploration of the mine, that is, countering the effects of mining the silver with ordinary tools, but otherwise it sticks out in truly anomalous fashion.

Physically, Meanderings of the Mine Mind is cleanly and tidily laid out on notably silver, grey paper. Even the illustrations have an eerie metallic quality to them. That said, the book does need another edit.

Meanderings of the Mine Mind is an interesting twist upon the ‘giant body as dungeon’ adventure in which the Player Characters penetrate and explore the body of some gigantic beast or even a god. The twist being the brain being explored rather than the body and the brain still twitching and convulsing with sufficient life to make its memories a reality. Which all fits the tone and style of a Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, but whilst there is some inventiveness to the adventure, in places Meanderings of the Mine Mind is underdeveloped and not as fully realised as it could have been. Which means that the Game Master will definitely want to make some adjustments before running it.

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DISCLAIMER: The author of this review is an editor who has edited titles for Lamentations of the Flame Princess on a freelance basis. He was not involved in the production of this book and his connection to both publisher and thus the author has no bearing on the resulting review.

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

—oOo—
Senet—named for the Ancient Egyptian board game, Senet—is a print magazine about the craft, creativity, and community of board gaming. Bearing the tagline of “Board games are beautiful”, it is about the play and the experience of board games, it is about the creative thoughts and processes which go into each and every board game, and it is about board games as both artistry and art form. Published by Senet Magazine Limited, each issue promises previews of forthcoming, interesting titles, features which explore how and why we play, interviews with those involved in the process of creating a game, and reviews of the latest and most interesting releases.

Senet Issue 10 was published in the spring of 2023. Where the Senet Issue 9 diverged from the magazine’s usual coverage of board and card games to touch a little upon the roleplaying hobby—and by doing so, leave the reader wishing that the roleplaying hobby had a magazine as good as Senet, this issue is definite return to the fold. Nary a mention of the roleplaying hobby in sight! Instead it is all board games with the usual mix of previews, reviews, articles, interviews, and regular departments. For the most part, it is another clean, tidy, and easy to read issue.

Aside from the mention in the editorial that the magazine’s co-founder, James Hunter, was named Art Director of the Year at the British Society of Magazine Editor’s Awards, Senet Issue 10 quickly gets down to business with ‘Behold’. This is the regular preview of some of the then-forthcoming board game titles. The most intriguing entry here is Cosmoctopus, a tentacle-gathering game from Paper Fort Games about attempting to summon ‘The Great Inky One’ that seems slightly tongue-in-cheek in its treatment of the cultists controlled by the players. ‘Points’, the regular column of readers’ letters contains some feedback on previous issues as well as the growing interest in the hobby. There is scope here for expansion of this letters page to give space to more voices and readers of Senet. One way of doing that is perhaps to expand it when ‘For Love of the Game’ comes to end. This regular column continues the journey of the designer Tristian Hall towards the completion and publication of his Gloom of Kilforth. In this entry in the series, he looks at the next step in the process in bringing the game to market by showing it off at conventions and encountering some of the advantages and pitfalls. As a regular convention attendee, this is an interesting look at attending conventions from the other side.

Senet follows a standard format of articles and article types and Senet Issue 10 is no exception. One explores a theme found in board games, its history, and the games that showcase it to best effect, whilst another looks at a particular mechanic. In addition, there are two interviews, one with a designer, the other with an artist. In this issue, the thematic article is ‘Roll and Movie’, an exploration of the relationship between films and board games by Alexandra Sonechkina. In the 2020s, we are spoiled by the number of board games based on films that strongly adhere to their themes through their mechanics. It goes back to one of the earliest of major filmic board game adaptations, Escape from the Death Star from 1977, pointing out that games of the period were based on tried and tested mechanics, before coming up to date with the output of design teams like that of Prospero Hall with games like Jaws and Rear Window, which are highly thematic and whose mechanics model the film sources. It notes how some films are difficult to adapt, like Rear Window, due to the age and the lack of familiarity for a younger audience and themes of the source material, but also how such adaptations can appeal to a wider audience and even to board game players who have not seen the source material. Having explored how board games have drawn from films for their source material and themes, the article switches around to look at some board games that have inspired films, such as Clue and Battleships. The author also looks at the theme of film making in board games and the challenges of adapting the look of a film and its cast to a board game. Here Alexandra Sonechkina runs out of space, as effectively, this is really three articles in one—one on film adaptations, one on board games about filmmaking, and one about the physical adaptation. Ideally, Senet will revisit these subjects—and they are multiple subjects—in future articles. One last issue with ‘Roll and Movie’ is that the images used are presented in too small a fashion so that the detail and look of these games is lost.

Dan Thurot’s ‘Tricks and Treats’ looks at the mechanic of the trick-taking game and its history, grounded as it is in the origins of the ordinary deck of playing cards and the games played with it, associating the mechanic with gambling! An interesting history in hand, the article comes to the contemporary era to look at obvious trick-taking card games like the well-received Scout and then moves onto designs where the track-taking mechanic is less obvious and more readily themed. Examples like this include the Kennerspiel des Jahres-winning The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine in which the players work together to keep their spaceship functioning, whilst Brian Boru: High King of Ireland which almost hides its trick-taking mechanics, combining the mechanic with an action per card. It also looks at designs to come, Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition which adds the element of guessing, which thematically, has the players wondering if their Schrödinger’s cats are alive or dead. It is a good overview of the mechanic and a more rounded piece when compared to the preceding ‘Roll and Movie’.

The first of the issue’s two interviews is with the designer of one the influential board games of the last two decades—Matt Leacock. In ‘Legacy Builder’, he looks back to the origins of Pandemic and how it became success, driving the popularity of the co-operative game and how it became a cultural touchstone during the COVID-19 pandemic, before coming up to date with his latest design, Daybreak, recently nominated for the 2024 Kennerspiel des Jahres. It is an informative and engaging interview and Daybreak sounds a fascinating design dealing as it does with climate change and the attempts to ameliorate its effects. The second interview is with Naïade, illustrator of Tokaido and Namiji. In ‘Eastern Promise’, he guides us through some of his artistic highlights, starting with Tokaido and including the weirdness of One Key—Gandalf facing a toast demon, anyone?—alongside other titles. The artwork is excellent and once again, Senet does a good job of showcasing it.

The film adaptation theme of ‘Roll and Movie’ continues in the ‘Unboxed’, Senet’s reviews section with a review of Star Wars Villainous: Power of the Dark Side, plus there is some nostalgia with a review of Return to The Dark Tower. It does feel as if there are fewer reviews in this issue, but alongside the issue’s ‘Senet’s Top Choice’ of Undaunted: Stalingrad, there are interesting titles reviewed such as Spire’s End: Hildegard, a storytelling game and prequel to Spire’s End with fantastic artwork that is card driven rather than paragraph driven. It is rounded out with ‘The Best of 2022’, the magazine’s top ten from the previous year, of which Return to The Dark Tower and Undaunted: Stalingrad make the list.

Bringing Senet Issue 10 to a close are the regular end columns, ‘How to Play’ and ‘Shelf of Shame’. For ‘How to Play’, Andrew Brassleay explains ‘How being diagnosed as autistic helped me embrace my love of board games’, putting behind him the supposed adult aim of outgrowing them, and enabling him to navigate social situations because the the rules to games are more obvious and adhered to all of the players. It nicely paints a picture of board games being a force for good and a social enabling tool. Lastly, Black Orchestra is the board game taken off their ‘Shelf of Shame’ by Rachel Kremer and Heinze Havinga of Semi Co-op, a webcomic about games. The couple make it clear from the start that the game, with its theme of conspirators attempting to kill Hitler is not their taste, as they prefer games that are relaxing, but their version has a bit history, having been previously owned and amended by an older, avid gamer. Despite the theme, neither player had ‘fun’, but they learn more about the plots to assassinate Hitler and what it took to do that, so the experience is more interesting they would otherwise have thought. It shows the value of trying new things even if they have been stuck on a shelf for a while.

Physically, Senet Issue 10 is very professionally presented. It looks and feels as good as previous issues of the magazine.

Senet Issue 10 does feel slightly lighter in terms of the number of games covered, the number of smaller games previewed or reviewed having been severely reduced. However, that does not mean that the issue does not offer a good mix of articles, interviews, and reviews—it does. The only real disappointment is ‘Roll and Movie’ and only then in the fact that it could have been much, much longer, a series of its own. After the aberration of the content devoted to roleplaying in the previous issue, Senet Issue 10 returns to the fold with a solid set of reviews, previews, and discussions of board games.

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: One for One – Bathory’s ChildrenPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Sean Liddle

Setting: Eighties BerlinProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Four-page page, 291.07 KB PDFElevator Pitch: A battle of the bands isn’t a battle when you’re playing against a bastard Plot Hook: A band on the skids looks for way back and discovers this isn’t it
Plot Support: Staging advice and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Inexpensive# Short, easy to prepare scenario# Grungy heavy metal madness# Easy to adapt to other musical genres# Potential convention scenario# Rokkuphobia# Dendrophobia# Proditiophobia
Cons# Needs an edit# Whither part 4?# No cultist stats# No pre-generated Investigators
Conclusion# Heavy metal mayhem turns to madness# Cheap

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Signal to Noise – A 1980s Analog Horror ScenarioPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Colin Richards

Setting: Eighties PennsylvaniaProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Eighty-page page, 45.46 MB PDFElevator Pitch: Who watches the watchers?Plot Hook: A hijacked signal has consequences political, horrific, and televisual
Plot Support: Staging advice, seven pre-generated Investigators, thirteen handouts, four maps, thirteen NPCs, and five Mythos monsters.Production Values: Engagingly analogue and televisual
Pros# Television is reality. Reality is television.# Highly thematic one-shot which plays on the fears of television# Eighties sense of unreality# Includes QR code for the video handouts# Potential convention scenario# Technophobia# Mazeophobia# Televisiophobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# Aethir Institute plot strand underdeveloped
Conclusion# Videodrome meets Ring in highly thematic eighties horror
# Possesses pleasingly developed televisual sense of unreality# Reviews from R’lyeh Recommends

It seems surprising to realise that The Walking Dead is over two decades old. The comic by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore first appeared in 2003 and the resulting television series from AMC first aired in 2010 and has been followed with numerous spin-off series since. Both revitalised the zombie horror subgenre and the television series in particular, made zombies and horror acceptable to mainstream broadcasting like never before. Both comic book and television series tell the story of Rick Grimes, a sheriff’s deputy from Cynthiana, Kentucky, who after being wounded in the line of duty, awakes to find his wife and family missing and the world very much changed. Society has collapsed, the dead walk and hunger after our flesh, a virus means that everyone will rise as a walker after death, and the survivors huddle together, co-operate and scavenge for supplies, and somehow make choices that will keep them alive. The walkers are everywhere, a menace that cannot be vanquished, but they are not the only threat. Some survivors are prepared to kill and steal from other survivors—and worse. It is into this post-apocalyptic world where the dead walk—there are no such things as zombies—that the Player Characters are thrust in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set.
The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is published by Free League Publishing and provides an introduction to roleplaying in The Walking Dead Universe, with a simplified version of the rules, a complete scenario in the Survival Mode, and everything necessary to play that scenario. This includes two sets of dice, four maps, ten pre-generated Player Characters, and the Threat Meter. Everything is presented in full colour, though no photographs are used from The Walking Dead television series, so fans may be disappointed. That said, the artwork, done in the house style for Free Publishing is very good and fits the world very well.

So opening up the box, the first things to be found in the box are the dice and the Threat Meter. The dice consist of two different sets. The black Base Dice are marked with a ‘target’ symbol on their six faces to indicate a Success when rolled, as are the red Stress Dice. However, Stress Dice also have a ‘hand’ symbol on their one faces. When these are rolled after a Pushed dice check, they indicate that the Player Character has ‘messed up’ and attracted the attention of the Walkers. This, of course, is a bad thing. The Threat Meter is a simple dial that goes from one to six—it should actually go from zero to six—that is used to indicate how active the Walkers are and how many are present. The higher the number on the Threat Meter and the greater the number of Walkers and the more active they are. Below this are the pre-generated Player Characters. Six of these are standard Player Characters as you would create using The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules. Each has full stats, skills, a Talent, an Issue and a Secret which could get them into trouble, as well as some background. These six—plus one for an NPC—are designed to be used with ‘The Wolves’ Den’, the scenario in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set, and are given both male and female names to give the players the choice. The other four are characters from the television show, and they consist of Carol Peletier, Glenn Rhee, Michonne, and Gabriel Stokes. These four are done in full colour as opposed to tan tones of the other six. The four maps are done in full colour on very sturdy paper. One is double-sided and depicts north-east Georgia on one side and south-west Virginia on the other. The other three depict locations for ‘The Wolves’ Den’ scenario.

The ’Rules’ booklet explains everything about characters, combat, and Walkers. Anyone who played a year Zero Engine roleplaying game will be familiar with most of its contents. A Player Character has four attributes—Strength, Agility, Wits, and Empathy—rated between one and five, and each attribute has three associated skills, for a total of twelve in the game. These are rated between one and six. In addition, a Player Character has a Talent, such as ‘Eye on the Ball’ which enables a Player Character to relieve a point of Stress when a threat or enemy is defeated or overcome or Scavenger, which enables the Player Character to find more rations or food when scavenging. Health Points represent a Player Character’s physical health and cannot be higher then three. A Player Character also has an Anchor, an Issue, and a Drive. An Anchor is another person—Player Character or NPC—that the Player Character cares about and who is used narratively to ‘Handle Your Fear’ and when attempting to relieve Stress. The Issue is a roleplaying hook, such as ‘You think you are better than them’ or ‘Unable to sit down and shut up’ that the Game Master can use to create interesting, typically challenging situations. Drive is what pushes a Player Character to grit his teeth and withstand the pain, like ‘You love your mother’ and ‘God put me here to save their souls’. Once a session, a Drive can be invoked to gain extra dice on a test.

Mechanically, as with other Year Zero Engine roleplaying games, whenever a Player Character wants to undertake an action in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules, his player roles a number of Base Dice equal to the attribute plus skill plus any modifiers from gear, Talents, help, or the situation. If a single six, a Success, is rolled on the Base Dice, the Player Character succeeds, although extra Success will add bonus effects. However, if no Successes are rolled and the action is failed, or he wants to roll more Successes, the player has the choice to Push the roll. In which case, the Player Character suffers a point of Stress and gains a Stress Die. The player must also explain what the character is doing differently in order to Push the roll. For the pushed roll, the player will roll all of the Base Dice which did not roll success and the Stress Die. In fact, until the Player Character finds a way to reduce his Stress points, his player will continue to add Stress Dice equal to his character’s Stress Points on every roll. Only one pushed roll can be made per action, but the danger of having Stress Dice is if their results should be a one or ‘Walker’ symbol. It means two things. First, if the player has not yet pushed the roll, he cannot do so. Second, whether or not he has pushed the roll, it means that the Player Character has ‘Messed Up’. Typically, this means that he increased the numbers of Walkers nearby and attracted their attention, turning up the dial on the Threat Meter. In other situations, a ‘Messed Up’ might mean the Player Character has got lost, lost his footing, said the wrong thing in a tense standoff, and so on. Other sources of Stress include being short on food and water, getting shot at, seeing someone in the group get bitten by a Walker, killing someone in cold blood, and so on.

There are several means of getting rid of Stress. Primarily, these consist of a Player Character connecting and interacting with his Anchor, and at the end of the day, simply getting a good night’s sleep and plenty of rest. Whilst interacting with an Anchor can be during play, at the end of each session, a Player Character has to deal with the dreadful things that he has seen and done that session. This is done via the ‘Handle Your Fear’ mechanic and is triggered if the Player Character has suffered a Breaking Point like his Anchor being killed or disappearing, brutally killing or beating someone who is defenceless, is Broken by damage, suffers five Stress Points, and so on. At this point, the player rolls Base Dice equal to either his character’s Wits or Empathy, with a bonus for any Anchors who are still alive. This roll cannot be pushed, needs only one Success to succeed, but if failed, causes the Player Character to become Overwhelmed, meaning that he loses his Drive, becomes mentally Shattered, or his Issue is changed or added to.

Combat scales in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set depending upon who or what the Player Characters are facing. Duels are one-on-one attacks handled via opposed rolls, each combatant hoping to gain more Successes than the other. Brawls handle combat between multiple participants in which the Leadership skill can be used to hand out bonuses to allies in the fight. Combat is deadly though, a Player Character only possessing three points of Health and once they are lost, the Player Character is Broken, gains a point of Stress, and his player must roll on the Critical Injuries table. The lack of Health in comparison to other roleplaying games is compounded by the limited access to medical care. Make no mistake, The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is deadly.

A setting which is already deadly due to low health and lack of healing, is compounded by the presence of the Walkers. They are a constant, lurking presence in The Walking Dead Universe, in game terms that presence is typically written into a scenario at a particular location or encounter, as you would expect, but also brought into play randomly whenever a player rolls a ‘Walker’ symbol on a Stress Die. Narratively, this could be as simple as the Player Characters opening a door to discover a room full of Walkers or a Walker bursting out of a bush to attack the Player Characters. The presence of the Walkers is tracked by the Threat Meter, which ranges from zero and ‘You are in a cleared area and safe. For now.’ to six and ‘The dead are in your face, surrounding you.’ The Threat Level is raised by rolling a ‘Walker’ on a Stress Die, failing a skill roll to avoid Walkers, doing something in the game to attract their attention, and so on. Ideally, the Player Characters will sneak around them as they scavenge buildings and search locations, but of course, that is unlikely. At low levels on the Threat Meter, it is possible for the Player Characters to go quiet and wait it out until the Walkers have either wandered off or gone quiet themselves. At higher levels, the Player Characters will need to find a way to distract the Walkers and make them go elsewhere or fight them. Encounters with a few Walkers are possible and these can be engaged in ‘Single Walker Attacks’, but Walkers congregate and then they fight as Swarms. Fights against Swarms are group endeavours, the aim being to roll more Successes than a Swarm to first reduce its size and then escape it. If a Player Character or Player Characters lose against a Walker attack, there is a table of very nasty and brutal ‘Walker Attack’ effects which will have the players wincing when they hear the results. The rules cover sacrificing another, brawling amidst a Swarm, clearing out an area, and lastly, amputation, the latter the last desperate result to resolve after a Walker bite…

There is good advice for the Game Master including how to make it scary and how to include the characters from the television series as NPCs, and to not cheapen the lives of the Player Characters and the NPCs. All this complements the Principles of the Game given at the start for both players and the Game Master. These are to do whatever it takes to survive; death is inescapable, the Player Characters are never truly safe or alone, and that in terms of game play, everyone is telling a story and fiction comes first. There is advice too on running the game mode for the scenario in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set. This is Survival Mode, typically a scenario with pre-written events and locations which can be played in a session or two, as opposed to Campaign Mode, played in multiple sessions with a more open storyline.

The scenario in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is ‘The Wolves’ Den’. This is written around two other aspects of The Walking Dead Universe—that the stories are not about the Walkers, but about the survivors and often, other survivors are more of a danger than the Walkers. It is written around the six pre-generated Player Characters included in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set and opens with them searching for two of their number who have eloped, breaking up a relationship in the process and taking some valuable equipment, including a vehicle and weapons, with them in the process. The scenario gets nastier and nastier as it progresses, building from creepy to in-your-face horror, culminating in a confrontation with a band of The Wolves, the violent group of survivors encountered in the fifth and sixth seasons of The Walking Dead television series.

Physically, The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is very well presented. Everything is of a very high quality, especially the maps which can be used beyond the play of ‘The Wolves’ Den’, as can the Threat Meter. However, the books need a slight edit in places and not everything is quite as clearly explained as it should, such as handling NPC skills.

If there is a problem with The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set, it is that it only has the one scenario, ‘The Wolves’ Den’. Essentially, once the scenario has been played through, the obvious value and utility of The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is not as great as it should be. However, look at The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set instead as a toolkit and it is actually more useful than it first appears. It has official dice for The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and the Threat Meter is a useful tool to have sat on the table, the maps are great, and the pre-generated Player Characters are useful for when running The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules. It is disappointing that there is only one scenario in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set, but there is a lot that is useful too.

The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is a very good introduction to The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and roleplaying in the brutal world of The Walking Dead.

As its title suggests, Going Underground – A Case File for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game is a scenario for the roleplaying game based on the Rivers of London novels by Ben Aaronovitch. In this roleplaying game, as magic returns to the world, there is the need to deal with the mysteries, oddness, and secrets of the ‘demi-monde’, as well as investigate crimes committed by those within it and those associated with it. In this urban fantasy game, this need is fulfilled by the London Metropolitan Police Service’s special magic branch, also known as ‘the Folly’, and the Player Characters are its newly recruited members. Magic plays a big role in Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game and thus in Going Underground, and some of the Player Characters are practitioners—Apprentice Newtonian Wizards—who will need their magic to best solve the mystery at the heart of the scenario. It is a short affair, a group capable of playing through it in a single session, two at best. It is also an introductory scenario, suitable for as a beginning scenario, but also easily played after the solo case file, ‘The Domestic’, and the full scenario, ‘The Bookshop’ in the core rulebook, or simply inserted into an ongoing campaign.

Going Underground – A Case File for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game can be played through with two, three, or four players, and there are suggestions as to which pre-generated Player Characters from the core rulebook are suitable as well as what spells will be useful. Werelight is definitely one of them. There are two issues with the scenario, one of which is that it is short, the other that it is set in 2016 rather than the present day. This is because the London Underground began running late-night services after that and so made accessing its tracks very much more difficult and dangerous. That said, there are notes if the Game Master wants to shift Going Underground out of London and set in another city with an underground mass transport network, such as New York’s Subway, the Paris Métro, or indeed Glasgow’s Clockwork Orange.

The scenario opens with a telephone call in the middle of night. This is from Sergeant Jaget Kumar, the Falcon Liaison Officer for the British Transport Police. He reports that an engineer conducting a patrol on the London Underground at the British Museum station got the fright of his life and Sergeant Kumar wants to determine if the incident is Falcon-related—which of course, it is. The Player Characters get to walk from the Folly to nearby Holborn tube station, through the city’s nightlife, to first interview the engineer. They do have a little time to conduct some preliminary research, which should turn up one interesting fact—there is no British Museum London Underground station. Or rather, there is no longer a working British Museum London Underground station. It was closed in 1933 and is no longer part of the running network, but was used as an air raid shelter in World War 2 and later a Cold War emergency command post. It is now used for storage. The British Museum London Underground station is what is known as a ‘ghost station’—and it is this conflation of ‘ghost’ and ‘station’ which the author takes advantage of and should arouse the interest of the players and their characters. That, of course, and the fact that the nearby British Museum is also reputed to have been haunted by its very own ‘Unlucky Mummy’.

After the Player Characters have interviewed the very jittery Underground engineer, they get to descend into the network and work their way to the British Museum Underground station. This is preceded by a very stern safety briefing and Sergeant Kumar’s confession that he is really looking forward to visiting the British Museum Underground station as it is a ghost station he has never visited or had reason to visit. The bulk of the scenario’s investigation and possible action takes place here. There is not a great deal to the investigation itself, but it is nicely detailed with numerous options and suggestions given and explored to deal with the handful of problems that the Player Characters find in the remains of the old station. Notably, one of these is combat, but there is certain reluctance to its inclusion here, as if not only is it not the ideal solution to the mystery, it is not one that the author really wanted to include. There is a wealth of background and historical detail to back up the scenario’s plot that showcases the research that has gone into the scenario. This includes a history of the London Underground, the British Museum station in particular, and the ‘Unlucky Mummy’. Throughout is also staging advice and suggestions for the Game Master as well as a plot progression diagram at the beginning.

Physically, Going Underground – A Case File for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game is very nicely produced. It is well written, the illustrations excellent, the cartography good, and the handouts decent.

If there is an issue with Going Underground – A Case File for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game, it is that it is disappointingly short, but then it does cover just a few hours’ worth of investigation. However, it is detailed in terms of plot and background, as well as the resolution to its mystery, with some fun NPCs for the Game Master to portray and the Player Characters to interact with. Ultimately, Going Underground – A Case File for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game is a very nicely done scenario that really does feel as if Ben Aaronovitch could have written it. No fan of the Rivers of London series would be surprised to see this turn up as a short story or graphic novel.

The end is nigh and there is no denying it. The seas rise. The forests spread. Crops fail. Wars continue without reason. The dead walk the land. Peasants suffer taxes, plague, and worse. As the world takes one more breath closer to dying, the arch-priestess Josilfa stands in the pulpit in the great cathedral to the god Nechrubel in the city of Galgenbeck in the land of Tveland, preaching that prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisk are coming true. The apocalypse is pending and the inquisition of the Two-Headed Basilisks will see to it that no apostate or heretic turn their face away from the end or find salvation in other gods. Yet there are some who would deny all the signs around them and even say that there is another way. That the masses need heed to the pontification of arch-priestess Josilfa in her doom mongering prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisk, that the darkness can be held back. Vriprix the Mad Wizard is one such voice. He believes that the Forbidden Psalm, a nameless scripture, contains the necessary knowledge to do so, and is located deep in the ruins of the city of Kergüs. He will not emerge from behind the doors of his castle home, but his pockets run deep, and he has gold aplenty to hire mercenaries and freebooters to undertake tasks for him. This is the set-up for Forbidden Psalm: The Times Edition.
Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition is a miniatures game published by Space Penguin Ink. It is notable for a number of things. First—as the background suggests—it is compatible with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. That means that Player Characters can be converted to use with Forbidden Psalm and with a bit of effort, the campaign that comes in Forbidden Psalm, could be adapted to Mörk Borg if a more physical, combative game is desired. Like Mörk Borg, a set of polyhedral dice is required to play Forbidden Psalm.

Second, it is a 28 mm skirmish level miniatures game playable with just five miniatures per warband per player and as a systems-agnostic setting, those miniatures can be from any range and publisher, meaning that a player can easily tailor his band to his choice. It is played on two-foot square board and Forbidden Psalm does include rules for the co-operative play, solo play, versus mode, and multiplayer play with three or four participants. The scale and numbers of Forbidden Psalm puts it roughly on a par with a Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City and Mordheim.

Third, Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition is not one book, but two. It compiles two volumes. The core rules, Forbidden Psalm, and the campaign, Footsteps of the Mad Wizard. This is a twenty-six-part campaign and if Footsteps of the Mad Wizard is run using Mörk Borg, it would actually make it the first campaign for Mörk Borg.

A warband in Forbidden Psalm consists of five miniatures. Each has four stats—Agility, Presence, Strength, and Toughness, Hit Points based on his Toughness, a randomly determined Flaw and Feat, and then some equipment. The latter comes out of a starting budget of fifty gold for all of the Warband. If a player wants his warband to include a Spellcaster, this must be paid for, who is then generated as a standard figure complete with stats, Feat and Flaw, and so on, plus two scrolls—one clean and one unclean—that he will begin play with. Pets—including a pet rock, which is good throwing—and a Slug Wizard can also be purchased and mercenaries be hired. These are more expensive options than hiring the spellcaster. Forbidden Psalm provides examples of both pets and mercenaries.

Råtta Strejkbrytare
Agility +3 Presence +1 Strength -3 Toughness +0
Hit Points: 8
Flaw: Loner (-1 to tests within two inches of an ally)
Feat: Rat Catcher (free Bag o’ Rats)
Equipment: Short sword, light armour, backpack, lantern, bandages

Set-up and game play in Forbidden Psalm is simple. Pick a scenario to play and set up the board, determine weather and conditions, roll for initiative, and deploy according to the scenario. Then from one round to the next, the participants determine initiative, take it in turns to activate a figure, then monsters, and that is it. Play proceeds like this until the objective for the scenario has either been achieved or it proves impossible to do so. Movement is based on a figure’s Agility stat, and each figure can act and move once when activated. An action can be to make an attack, use an item of equipment or a feat, read a scroll, interact with treasure or scenario objects, drag a down figure a short distance, and so on. If a Test has to be made, it is rolled on a twenty-sided die, the aim being to roll twelve or more. A roll of one is a fumble and a roll of twenty is a critical. Combat is equally as simple, though in melee combat, the defender has a chance to strike back, though with a penalty. A figure reduced to zero Hit Points is ‘Downed’, but is killed if reduced to negative Hit Points. A ‘Downed’ can still die at the end of the scenario or he might simply have a wound or even a wound and a new Feat he has learned!

Both players begin a scenario with each possessing access to six Omens. These grant fantastic, one-off benefits such as dealing maximum damage, forcing the reroll of any dice, cancelling out one critical or fumble.

Magic takes the form of reading scrolls. This simply requires a test versus the figure’s Presence stat. This does not consume the scroll and the figure can read a scroll again and again over the course of a scenario. On a failure or a Critical, the figure gains a Tragedy. Tragedies are accrued and carried over from one game to the next. They are then used and expunged as modifiers to rolls on the Calamity Table, such as when a player rolls a Fumble when reading a scroll. A Calamity, such as everything feeling fine, but on roll of seven on the twenty-sided die whenever the figure is activated, his head explodes and he dies, or the figure’s arm becomes permanently hostile to the figure and punches him every round until the limb is amputated, lasts for a whole scenario.

The rules for Forbidden Psalm run to some forty pages, but that covers everything—warband creation, magic, movement, action, combat, and so on. They are clear and easy to read and grasp, and anyone who has played another set of miniatures wargame rules will be able to adjust with ease, as to be fair, will anyone who has played Forbidden Psalm. The remainder of Forbidden Psalm is divided between some twenty-five or so monsters and the campaign. The monsters include ‘The Blind Spider Queen’, ‘Blood Rage Vampire’, the ‘Corpse Collector’ of the front cover to Forbidden Psalm, both ‘Dismembered Ghouls’ and ‘Faecal Ghouls’, the ‘Mutant Chicken of Kalkoroth’ (complete with laser eyes), and lastly, the scythe-armed ‘The Editors’ which stuff the mouths of Downed figures with paper covered in mad ramblings and so kill them, rising the next round as Disciples of the Editors! If a monster is killed, its organs can be harvested as ‘Sweet Meats’ and sold. However, this requires a successful Presence Test otherwise the figure realises that his actions are so disgusting he must make a Morale Test! Overall, this is a solid selection of suitably vile monsters and it would be easy to add more from Mörk Borg.

The campaign in Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition combines the shorter campaign from the original rulebook for Forbidden Psalm and In the Footsteps of the Mad Wizard, and together they take up half of the book. In this, the extremely reclusive Vriprix the Mad Wizard hires the Player Characters to undertake various tasks, such as exploring a nearby house for Black-Spotted Fungus, killing a rival wizard, finding the culprit who has stolen his socks(!), and more… Each clearly states the goal for the Player Characters, rewards, set-up and deployment, threats, and then how to run it in solo and co-operative play, plus some colour text to read out, especially if it is being run as part of a Mörk Borg game. After Vriprix disappears at the end of the part of the campaign, the rest concerns the Player Characters’ attempts to track him down in the city of Dawnblight in the Kergüs region. Here they will find one of their number imprisoned and have to rescue him from Ice Prisons, scavenge for food to keep the Hogs Head Inn running, kill the innkeeper’s ex-lover-now Faecal Ghoul and return with proof, hunt ravenous monsters and try to survive when they turn on them, and so on. It is a fun campaign in whatever format it is being run. There are notes too on what the Player Characters can do between missions and improve themselves. In general, the scenarios are sufficiently complex for Forbidden Psalm, but they may need a little fleshing out here and there to work as anything other than very straightforward scenarios.

Physically, Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition is decently done and keeps everything clear and simple, and so it is very easy to read. In terms of art style, Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition avoids the illegibility of the Artpunk style of the standard Mörk Borg title.

Although not written as one, Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition has the simplicity and ease of use of an introductory wargame, made all the easier by its low demands in terms of miniatures and terrain pieces required. The compatibility between Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition and Mörk Borg also highlights the simplicity and adaptability of the Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game, not just to another setting or genre, but an entirely different type of game—the miniatures wargame—and then back again. All of which is supported by over twenty scenarios which can be played in solo, co-operative, and player-versus mode or run as straightforward roleplaying scenarios. Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition is a solid set of skirmish miniatures combat rules, perfect for the Mörk Borg devotee, suitable for the wargames enthusiastic wanting a straightforward set of rules, and good for the Game Master who wants an undemanding campaign.

On the edge of the pit, stands a great iron pole from chains hang, some broken, some not. This is the sacrificial bluff at which the great tentacular pit-beast would rise from roiling mists that filled the one hundred feet wide and some say a thousand-foot-deep pit to drag away the young and unfortunate virgins offered as sacrifices to dissuade it from attacking the surrounding countryside as it had done for thousands of years. Thus, it has been centuries, the local villages offering up their young as sacrifices once a decade, the widespread devouring of the countryside prevented following the intervention of a warrior-priest and the agreement he reached with the creature, an agreement that resulted in his being dishonoured. More recently, with the practice having fallen by the wayside and it being a decade since the last set of sacrifices, the tentacles of the pit-beast have been reaching up out of the ravine in search of offerings capable of sating its hunger. Worse, the tentacles have been accompanied by strange, grey-robed men with no faces and long, sinewy arms. So far, the predations of both have been avoided by the local peasantry banding together and driving them off, mob-fashion. That though cannot last, for the tentacles and the faceless grey men are certain to return—and in greater numbers. Thus, brave adventurers have set out to investigate the pit, find out who or what is behind the marauding pit-beast and the people of the pit, and put a stop to them, and of course, go in search of mystery, adventure, riches, and fame.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit is second scenario to be published by Goodman Games for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Designed for a group of eight to ten First Level Player Characters, it is an important scenario for two reasons. One is that it is written by the publisher, Joseph Goodman, and the other is that it is the second scenario to be written for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the first to be written for Player Characters who are not Zero level. The previous adventure, Dungeon Crawl Classics #67: Sailors on the Starless Sea was not only the first, but it was a Character Funnel, the signature set-up and play style of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game in which players control not one, but several Zero Level characters, each a serf or peasant looking beyond a life tied to the fields and the seasons or the forge and the hammer to prove themselves and perhaps progress enough to become a skilled adventurer and eventually make a name for themselves. In other words, to advance from Zero Level to First Level. Of course, the Player Characters at the start of Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit are presumed to have done that or the Judge could actually run Dungeon Crawl Classics #67: Sailors on the Starless Sea before this scenario and its survivors, having reached First Level, now play it as a standard Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure.

The adventure is not so much a descent into the pit—although ultimately, the Player Characters will reach its bottom—but a descent through the caves and tunnels carved into the walls of the pit by the great tentacular beast and its faceless, blubbery, grey cultists. Here what the Player Characters discover is a working, living dungeon complex, a temple dedicated to the blind idiot god whose name they will learn is Palimdybis, its cultists conduct ceremonies to their master, make sacrifices to him, and prepare the strange powders and concoctions, made from the suckers, eyeballs, and skin scoured off their master’s tentacles, that they use to transform initiates into the inhuman state of full cultist. Even the descent to this complex is dangerous enough with its cracked and slippery stone steps which wind their way around the side of the pit, the possibility being that the Player Characters lose their footing and plummet to their deaths. Once inside the complex, Palimdybis’ influence can be found everywhere. His tentacles seem to reach everywhere, most notably in a ravine where they can reach up to attack intruders or pull down a drawbridge that will allow people to cross, the Octo-masses which burst out of the bellies of cultists once they are slain, and in the tentacle transport which can be ridden up and down the complex by clutching the rope ladder and rigging the cultists have attached to it. This only hints at the ability of the cultists to command and control the tentacles, each of them learning to summon and direct the tentacles once initiated. This is a group endeavour and requires at least three cultists. It is also possible for Player Characters to learn the spell Control Tentacle and so gain the same abilities—at least within the temple and the pit. This tentacle transport is not the only means of traversing the complex. For example, mazes serve as mediative puzzles—almost like the Pattern from Roger Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber—that the crimson-robed middle-ranking cultists, yellow-robed senior cultists, and blue-robed cult leader—use to transport themselves between the levels of the temple. These mazes are given as actual handouts that the players must solve using pen and paper in order to proceed further into the temple!

Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit is a dangerous affair, especially once the cultists begin summoning tentacles. There are also many features which work like traps, like the meditative mazes, but are not traps in the classic sense, plus, the processes necessary for the initiates to become full-blown cultists are dangerous as well. The monsters are nasty too, like the mineral-horned mountain basilisk, a variant of the traditional basilisk whose gaze takes longer to turn its victims to stone, but whose solid gold horn is bound to attract the attention of the greedy Player Character. Lastly, the final confrontation and climax of the dungeon is a nasty fight that the players will feel lucky to have their characters survive.

One aspect of Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit to note is that it is low in terms of reward or treasure. There is no real discussion of what happens beyond the adventure itself and little in terms of monetary reward to be found. There are three magical items of note to be found. One is a very fragile wand that enhances and grants detection spells, another is a short sword that can be thrown at goblins with unerring accuracy and cripples those who interfere, whilst a third is a simple +1 Mace. Of course, after reading the descriptions of the first two, why is the mace so very, very plain?

Originally, Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit consisted of just the four levels of the temple complex, but later printings include ‘Assassins of the Pit’, an additional area that can be added to the pit. There are suggestions as to where this could be, one being that the Player Characters follow an Octo-Mass, not yet killed, as it flees down the side of the pit to this new area. The twelve-room complex nicely expands upon the original dungeon, providing the means for the Player Characters to learn more about the cult and its history that cannot be found elsewhere in the temple, and it also sort of puts a face to the cultists found here. Or rather multiple faces, since these purple or black robe-wearing cultists are not so much cultists or transformed humans, but Octo-Masses that have escaped their former hosts and become assassins with the ability to take on the faces of others. Nicely creepy and in true weird fantasy style, they are led by a ‘Grandfather of Assassins’.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit is as solidly produced as you would expect for a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. The maps for the core scenario are appropriately tight and twisty for the tentacular nature of the scenario, though those for ‘Assassins of the Pit’ are plainer and not as interesting.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit set the tone for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game scenarios that were to follow—grim and weird and challenging. Its weirdness comes from the Lovecraftian tentacular theme threading, quite literally, through its dungeon halls, its grimness comes from the fate of both cultists and victims, and the challenge from it just simply being a tough dungeon crawl. If their characters survive Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit then your players are really going to feel they achieved something and their characters are truly worthy of getting to Second Level.

The set-up for Cryptozoology for Beginners is quite simple. The school’s photography class has been given a new assignment and raced off aboard the big yellow school bus on a mysterious field trip. This is out into the wilds to photograph and record the local wildlife. This is no ordinary wildlife though, but cryptids—Nessie, the Chupacabra, Sasquatch, and the Mothman—and if the players can take the right photographs and complete their assignments, they will be rewarded with stars, and get to go home top of the class. Cryptozoology for Beginners is published by Cryptozoic Entertainment and is part of the second trilogy of games based on the art of Steven Rhodes, noted for its sly, subversive dig at the social attitudes and fears of the seventies and eighties. Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is designed to be played by between two and four players, aged fourteen and up. The game is played over the course of three rounds in which players will draft cards—both Assignment Cards and Cryptid cards, and then play the Cryptid Cards to both activate their abilities and fulfil the requirements of the Assignment cards. A game can be played in twenty minutes or more, depending on the number of players.

Cryptozoology for Beginners consists of a twelve-page rules booklet, a deck of ninety-six Cryptid Cards, forty Assignment Cards, forty Scoring Tokens, and a Bus Standee. The rules booklet is short, easy to read, and includes a few clarifications and some optional rules. The latter are for a beginner game and a two-player game. The rules for a beginner game do feel superfluous given the simple nature of game and its play, especially given its suggested age limit. Much younger players will have no problems learning and playing Cryptozoology for Beginners. The Scoring Tokens are worth between three and six points and are kept face down throughout play, including when a player draws one and keeps it, and the Bus Standee is used to indicate the first player in each round.

The two card types are the Cryptid Cards and the Assignment Cards. These come in four colours—red, green, blue, and yellow—and are marked with one of seven icons—either Nessie, Sasquatch Footprint, Chupacabra, Mothman, Eldritch Tome, Target, and Horror. There are some cards which combine two icons, whilst the cards with the Horror icon—the Jersey Devil, Siren, and Jackalope—are colourless. Where link between the icons and the cryptids are obvious, the Target icon refers to Monster Hunters. Each of the Cryptid Cards has a special ability. For example, the ‘Nessie’ card requires a player to activate it and another two cards with the Nessie icon so that he can draw another card, whilst the Chupacabra card needs to be activated plus another four cards with the Chupacabra icon and then lets a player discard any card in play, even that of another player, and in return let the owner draw a new card.

The different types of Cryptid Card are also themed mechanically. Thus, the Cryptid Cards with the Nessie icon enable a player to draw more cards; the Cryptid Cards with the Sasquatch Footprint grant a player more Victory Tokens; the Cryptid Cards with the Chupacabra icon let a player steal cards from another player; and the Cryptid Cards with the Mothman icon grant a player with the most Mothman icons extra Victory Points. Of the other Cryptid Cards, those with the Eldritch Tome icon reward a player with Victory Token and those with Target icons can activated to draw and keep another Assignment card. The colourless cards give a variety of unique effects.

The Assignment Cards each provide an objective and a reward to be gained in return for completing it. For example, Assignment #1 requires a player to accrue four red cards and grants him three Victory Points, whilst Assignment #16 gives a player two points if he can accrue two points and at the end of the round, can either give the player another Victory Point or lets him keep a card with a Chupacabra icon.

Cryptozoology for Beginners is played in three rounds each of which consists of four phases. The first phase is the ‘Assignment’ phase. Each player draws two Assignment Cards, keeps one and hidden, whilst the other is placed face-up where everyone can see it and work to achieving it. In the second phase, the ‘Draft Cryptid’ phase, each player receives eight Cryptid Cards. He keeps a single card and passes the remainder to the next player. This is done until each player has drafted a hand of eight Cryptid Cards. The third phase is ‘Player Turns’. Each player takes it in turn to play a single Cryptid Card in front of him, activate its ability, and if he manages to complete an Assignment Card, either one face up on the table or the one he has secret, he gets to place it in front of him. It will add to his total score at the end of the game. Cards can only be activated once per phase. Play continues until no-one has any Cryptid Cards in their hand. This ends the round, players keep their completed Assignments and points scored, whilst all Cryptid Cards are discarded—unless a card says otherwise. A new round begins and repeats these steps, and then again for a third and final round. The Bus Standee is used to indicate the player who has the lowest score that is not hidden and lets him begin first in the next round. At the end of the game, the player with highest score wins the game.

In this way, the play of Cryptozoology for Beginners is simple and straightforward. In fact, too simple and straightforward. The problem with Cryptozoology for Beginners is that once play begins, there is very interaction between the players, only through a number of limited Cryptid Cards and then through the draft in the second phase of each round. This draft is the most important stage of play, since it sets up much of what a player will play and do in the ‘Player Turns’ phase. To go further, the ‘Draft Phase’ is not so much a ‘draft’ phase, but a ‘planning’ phase, a player trying work out whether to aim to complete Assignment Cards, focus on Cryptid Cards that give more points, and so on. The benefit of the draft means that each player will also have some idea of what his opponents are planning because of the cards they draft—in secret of course, but they are no longer there as the hands are passed around the table. Also, with just a few Assignment Cards in play, the competition between players can be fierce and made all the worse if a player grabs one that another player has been working towards completing, leaving him little time to adjust or really catch up.
Physically, Cryptozoology for Beginners is nicely done. The rules booklet is easy to read and the rules to understand, whilst the Victory Tokens and the School Bus are done on the thick, bright cardboard. The Assignment Cards are clear and simple, if bland, but really all of the game’s flavour comes from Steve Rhodes’ artwork on the Cryptid Cards which is highly entertaining, such as the Sasquatch on the ‘Seclusion of Sasquatch’ Cryptid Card making filming another Sasquatch whilst a third looks on laughing!

Ultimately, what sells Cryptozoology for Beginners is its artwork—and it really is good artwork. Otherwise, game play focuses too much on its draft mechanic—get it right and a player will sail through his turns, get it wrong and he will have slog to catch up. There is also little interaction beyond the draft. Younger players are more likely to like this more than older ones, the latter including the minimum suggested age group for Cryptozoology for Beginners. It is too simple a game for them. Ultimately, Cryptozoology for Beginners feels as if it should offer more than it does.

Since 2013, Goodman Games, the publisher of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic has released a book especially for Gen Con, the largest tabletop hobby gaming event in the world. That book is the Goodman Games Gen Con Program Book, a look back at the previous year, a preview of the year to come, staff biographies, community content, and a whole lot more, including adventures and lots tidbits and silliness. The first was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book, but not being able to pick up a copy from Goodman Games when they first attended UK Games Expo in 2019, the first to be reviewed was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2014 Program Book. Fortunately, a little patience and a copy of the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book was located and reviewed, so since 2021, normal order has been resumed with the Goodman Games Gen Con 2016 Program Book, the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book, and Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying.
What was notable about Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying was rather than providing a range of support for the roleplaying games published by Goodman Games, it focused on just the one, its flagship, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, and did so by providing one big single adventure—a tournament adventure. Or rather, a series of three connected and thematic dungeons that were played by multiple teams at Gen Con 50. Not only did Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying provide the dungeons ready to play, but also the same means of scoring as used for the tournament so that a group playing at home could measure their progress against those who participated in the event itself. It is a format that the publisher for the next title in the series, the Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston.
Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston, though, goes beyond Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying in terms of format, scope, and scale. In terms of format, it comes not as one book, but five, all contained in a bright and attractive wraparound cover. The five books are ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’, which contains the tournament adventure of the title, ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Player Handouts’, which provides the visual clues for the adventure, ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Judge’s Pack’, which provides a guide to running the tournament and more for the Judge, ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Player Pack’, which provides advice and rules for the tournament for the players as well as the pre-generated Player Characters, and ‘Goodman High Class of 1974 Yearbook’, which contains the community content and overview of Goodman Games attended events in the previous year. In terms of scope, the three parts of ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ will in turn take the Player Characters to Terra A.D. and the post-apocalyptic future of Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, then the Shudder Mountains of Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin, and finally, the weird world of Dungeon Crawl Classics #84: Peril on the Purple Planet. (It should be noted that none of those are required to run the tournament, but the Judge will enjoy the references, as will her players if they have time between their characters getting themselves killed.) Finally, the scale and brutality of ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ is turned up to the maximum, as the Player Characters race across three different worlds, attempting to outpace the ever-expanding phlogistonic sphere that will kill them all and survive to the end to face the one responsible for their situation—who they thought dead at the start of the first part, something none of the tournament teams managed to achieve. In other words, they all ended in a ‘TPK’, or ‘Total Party Kill’. Make no mistake, ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ is designed to be and is a tough adventure.
‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ begins in media res, with the Player Characters about to prevent their arch-nemesis, the vile sorcereress, Haera the White, and her band of crocmen about to summon something unspeakable. Being stalwart heroes, the Player Characters leap into action, but in managing to sop her, they find themselves flung into the first of several increasingly odd worlds. ‘Round 1: The Infinite Phlogistopic Engine Complex’ proper, opens with the Player Characters in an experimental energy complex which has suffered a reactor meltdown exacerbated by the phlogiston explosion caused by their intervention in Haera the White’s summoning. Here the Player Characters must adapt to a highly advanced technological facility—so advanced that magic works here too—and work out how the basic technology works, solve some incredibly fiendish puzzles, and then race to escape. There is a flash-freezing device to get past which could stop them in their tracks, a nuclear reactor to learn control to not only get past, but also on a mutagenic mist, a lake of carbon tetrachloride—also known as energized cold plasma—to cross and try not to get swarmed by nanites, and teams giant mutant rabbits with the ability to use technology and turn anything into orange-coloured cellulose on touch to get past. The path through is linear and far from easy. It is also, at times, quite complex. The Judge really does need to study this section of the adventure as there are some difficult puzzles which she has to understand and be able to impart the effects when the Player Characters interact with them. In comparison with the other two parts, the map in ‘Round 1: The Infinite Phlogistopic Engine Complex’ is not as interesting, nor does it depict its area as well.
‘Round 2: Beneath The Shudder Mountains’ begins at the bottom of a coal mine and it feels very much more like a traditional Dungeon Crawl Classics scenario, full of weird magic and odd creatures. It is purposefully filled with temptations that lead to dead ends and TPKs, like the giant-like coal outcropping which turns out to be an unkillable coal demon if the Player Characters are greedy enough to pull the silver axe out of its thigh, or the suit of mithril plate armour worn by a body which is under rock pile in a room in danger of a rock fall! Despite these diversions, ‘Round 2: Beneath The Shudder Mountains’ is more obviously linear than ‘Round 1: The Infinite Phlogistopic Engine Complex’ and for the characters and their players, a whole lot less weird. It also benefits from some clearer map excerpts that make it much more straightforward to run. The round ends with a highly entertaining encounter with a Hillbilly Hydra—a Ganderbeast—which has multiple honking geese heads and its own nasty, nasty Critical Hit Table.
‘Round 3: Escape From The Purple Planet’ drops the Player Characters at the base of tomb which they must ascend. This first involves being chased through a labyrinthine cave by a growing Orm Swarm, past a psychic resonator which creates objects in response to their thoughts that might kill them, followed by an ascent up a cylindrical tomb with no means of ascent whilst liquid brass from below wants to drown everyone, and then towards the end, a puzzle involving colour combinations which infuriatingly, relies on the way colours are combined in modern computers and thus on player knowledge. Lastly, ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ comes full circle for a final confrontation with Haera the White and the chance for the Player Characters to escape back home.
As a tournament scenario, each of the three stages in ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ is designed to be played in a four-hour slot. That is, of course, if the players and their characters are exploring the dungeons in an optimal manner, making best use of their time and resources. This does not mean that their progress is on a tight schedule, but rather that they should not get too distracted. There are some fiendishly difficult puzzles and traps and the whole affair is, as you would expect highly inventive from start to finish. Throughout ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’, there is advice on running it, including a discussion of the advice given E. Gary Gygax on playing tournament adventures in the Player’s Handbook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and how that was not applied in many of the cases that lead to team TPKs, and lots and lots of entertaining tales of how many of the teams and even individual players fared.
‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Player Handouts’ provides a set of images to be given out during play as the Player Characters proceed through the tournament, in ‘Round 1: The Infinite Phlogistopic Engine Complex’ in particular. The ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Judge’s Pack’ begins with a recap of the tournament just as entertaining as the play reports in ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’, before giving a breakdown of the results, TPKs, deadliest rooms and rounds, and even a comparison with the tournament adventure from the Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying. This is followed by a list of Special Awards and then the ‘Judges’ Rules And Tournament Guidelines’, including general advice, handling the different Classes in Dungeon Crawl Classics, Critical Hits, and so on. Since ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ is partly set on Terra A.D. and the post-apocalyptic future of Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the new rules for 2018 cover the use of ‘Artifacts Of The Ancients’ and how to work out how they are used and mutations. A good quarter of the ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Judge’s Pack’ is devoted to the scoring for each round and location.
The ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Player Pack’ gives the player’s guidance for playing a tournament scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, a minimum of background to the scenario, and in the main, the eleven pre-generated Player Characters. These are all Fourth Level.
The ‘Goodman High Class of 1974 Yearbook’ is the longest book in the pack that makes up Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston. It is also the only book to be in colour in the pack and as the title gives it its theme, which is that of a high school yearbook. This begins with entries for all the members of Goodman High, complete with photograph from their high school photograph, which means bad, oh so bad, haircuts! Goodman Games has always brought a physical presence to any event that it attends, such as the Doom Gong, which is banged at the start and end of tournament sessions and even when a Player Character dies! ‘Real Life Adventures: Quest For The Wizard Van’ charts the beginning of the quest for Goodman Games’ Wizard’s Van. The quest does not get very far, but it is start, and there is a happy ending as Goodman Games definitely has a Wizard’s Van now! Where there was no success in hunting for a wizard’s van for Goodman Games, one addition to the Goodman Games booth are the obelisks, complete with shelves and the means to fly the Dungeon Crawl Classics flags. Nicely, complementing the Doom Gong introduced for Gen Con 50 in 2017 whose construction was detailed in the Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying, ‘Building the Obelisks’ explains how they were made. It is a surprisingly long, but entertaining piece.
The gaming content in the ‘Goodman High Class of 1974 Yearbook’ is quite light and in keeping with the tone of the high school yearbook is somewhat tongue in cheek in places. Thus, ‘The Partial Spellbook Of Dr. Lotrin Von Weissgras-Geisterblut’ describes a Cleric’s spell that strips flesh of a fresh corpse and animates them into different form, whereas ‘The Customer Creature Catalogue’ details thirty-seven monsters based on photographs of certain winners on the Luck Token Redemption Table found at the back of the Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying. This does lean into the tongue in cheek tone, with creatures like the ‘Fro-Bro’, a slush/snow elemental, or the ‘Gleft’, a combination tadpole, dragon, and ocular bat! All are depicted in a cartoonish style, and fairly silly. The silliness continues with one of the items on sale at Gen Con 51 at the Goodman Games booth was DCC RPG Nunchuks! Putting aside the ridiculousness of them, ‘Nunchaku!’ gives full rules for their use in Dungeon Crawl Classics. This includes the Nunchaku Master as a variant of the Warrior Class and the only Class capable of using the nunchaku without penalty. There are new Mighty Deeds suitable for the Nunchaku Master, such as ‘Nunchaku Intimidation’ and ‘Nunchaku Counterstrike’. This piece of silliness make you wish that there was a pulpy martial arts setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics.
The Goodman Games Gen Con Program Guides have always thrown a spotlight on the artwork that appears as covers on its titles and in their pages. In this volume with ‘Painting The Froghemoth’, Erol Otus shows off his development of his Froghemoth painting that is featured in the endsheets of Original Adventures Reincarnated #3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. It is fantastic to see the work in progress and the end result, also shown here, is stunning. ‘Erol And The Rubber Monsters’ looks at his collection of rubber monsters is an entertaining addition.
Every Goodman Games Gen Con Program Guide highlights the activities of the Goodman Games community and the ‘Goodman High Class of 1974 Yearbook’ is no exception. It includes a group photograph of the winners of the program guide’s tournament with ‘Meet The RidersOn The Phlogiston’, a full list of the events Goodman Games planned to attend in 2019, and photographs from the thirty-four events it attended in the previous year! This all highlights Goodman Games’ presence at conventions. It returns to ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ with ‘News Flash! Origins Tournament Update!’ which reports on what happened when the tournament was run at Origins 2019, a nice complement to the ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Judge’s Pack’ and its big report on the tournament at Gen Con 2018. There are the usual additions such as ‘road crew flyer DESIGN CONTEST 2019’ and ‘2018 – 2019 mailing label artwork’ too.
The ‘Goodman High Class of 1974 Yearbook’ ends on a more serious and actually more interesting note, especially for scholars of Dungeons & Dragons and anyone with an interest in its inspiration as listed in the Appendix N of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. The latter important because of its strong influence on Dungeon Crawl Classics. ‘Comics In D&D’ by James Maliszewski looks at the very obvious inspirations for art in the Original Dungeons & Dragons taken directly from Marvel Comics. The author tracks down the originals and compares with how they appeared in the roleplaying game to show really just how amateurish the beginnings of the hobby were. Michael Curtis’ ‘Adventures In Fiction: Ballantine Adult Fantasy’ is engaging history and examination of the fiction published by Ballatine Books as part of its Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series between 1969 and 1974. Several of the titles would go on to be listed in Appendix N, so this is a nice piece of bibliographic archaeology for Appendix N. Lastly, in ‘Appendix N Archaeology’ spotlights are thrown on authors who might have been included in Appendix N. The three authors discussed—Harold Lamb, Clark Ashton Smith, and William Hope Hodgson—are all interesting and in each case, are given good introductions to their respective works and examinations of their influence on E. Gary Gygax and Dungeons & Dragons. These are all excellent essays and if Goodman Games were to expand this into a book all of its very own, it would a fine complement to the Appendix N.
Physically, the Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston is an odd product with multiple booklets and books, one in full colour, the others not. All though are decently laid out, easy to read, lavishly illustrated throughout, and good-looking both in black and white, and in colour, much in keeping with the other entries in the series. However, the pack as a whole is not quite as durable because it is made up of several parts rather than a whole and is both easier to damage and more difficult to store.
The Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston greatly differs from the previous entries in the series—and even from the Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying—as it contains only the one scenario and not as much gaming content. Consequently, it is not going to be of interest to anyone who does not play Dungeon Crawl Classics and who does not want what is a very tough tournament adventure. There are points of interest though for the Dungeons & Dragons scholar in ‘Goodman High Class of 1974 Yearbook’ that are worth reading even if the tournament adventure is not to their liking. For the Dungeon Crawl Classics devotee, there is of course, the community content to enjoy, but what Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston really presents is the roleplaying game at its hardest, its most challenging, and even if said devotee never gets to play the tournament adventure, at its most entertaining.
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Goodman Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Quick-starts are means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps too. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game for the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine is the quick-start for Maggot Machine, a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game set in the 1994 when the world was ruined by Maggot Machines, acid reign began to fall, and mankind was driven deep into the UnderLand when they still pray that they will remain undiscovered.

It is an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game of post-apocalyptic horror.

It is designed to be played by four players, plus the Game Master.

It is a thirty-two page, 6.49 MB full colour PDF.

The quick-start is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent, reminiscent of SLA Industries, Second Edition from the same publisher.

The themes and nature of the Maggot Machine Roleplaying Game and thus the Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine, specifically the horror and its bloody nature, means that it is best suited to a mature audience.

How long will it take to play?
Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine and its adventure, ‘Journey into LightHell’, is designed to be played through in a single session.

What else do you need to play?
Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine requires six six-sided dice per player.

Who do you play?
The Player Characters in Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine consist of four Guild Knights which make up a Brigade. The four pre-generated Player Characters consist of two Scrappers and Clashers. Slashers rely on stealth, caution, and experience to creep through the long-abandoned streets and buildings of LightHell in search of lost artefacts. They are noted for their conical helmets. Crashers are the muscle of the Guild Houses, sent out alongside Scrappers to protect them. One of the two pre-generated Scrappers grew up a Sewer Pipe Orphan and wields a fire sword, whilst the other was a Child of the State and can easily traverse rough terrain. One of the two pre-generated Clashers was raised in luxury as Guild Spawn and is a One Person Rumour Mill who can more knowledge of a building to be scavenged, whilst the other is a LightHell Mongrel, a foundling from the surface above, who as a Trusty Canary, can first detect the first traces of the poison winds and the distinctive rotten whiff of Maggot Machines.

How is a Guild Knight defined?
A Guild Knight has six stats—Agility, Cunning, Might, Movement, Presence, and Wyrd. The latter is used to power Weird Abilities. The pre-generated Guild Knights have stats ranging between two and four.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine uses a dice pool system. Rolls of six allow an extra die to be rolled. Rolls of one can simply be rerolled. Once this has been done, all results of one are removed and the remaining dice results compared. Each die of the Reactive Character that is higher than the Active Character’s dice cancels that die, and removes it from the Active Character’s pool. At the end of the process, whichever of the Active Character or Reactive Character has any dice left, they score Victory Points equal to the remaining dice. Victory Points will deal damage in combat, but can mean the winner completes a task faster or better.

How does combat work?
Combat in Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine uses the same dice pool system. Might is used as the Active/Reactive stat for melee combat and Agility is used as the Active/Reactive stat for ranged combat. Once Victory Points are determined, a Soak roll is made for armour. Any roll of four or more reduces the Victory Point total by the amount rolled. Any Victory Points remaining are inflicted as damage. If the damage is inflicted by the Reactive Character, the damage is halved.

Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine does not include the full combat rules. More detail and more tactical options are covered in the core rulebook.

How does ‘Wyrd’ work?
Wyrd is used to active Wyrd powers and gifts. Only one Guild Knight has an ability which requires Wyrd points to be spent.

What do you play?
In Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine, the scenario is ‘Journey Into LightHell’. The House of Wire sends the Brigade from the UnderLand into the LightHell to deal with a Maggot Mite infestation at Sterafill Stop and make repairs to the warning system installed on its rooftop. The Guild Knights discover a map of the immediate area indicating possible danger, but are expected to explore and scavenge the area for artefacts and useful items to bring back to the UnderLand. The area is infested with Maggot Mites, Stab Merchants, and worse, although there is some delightfully grotty, grubby, and British salvage to scavenge…

The background suggests some politics between the Houses of the UnderLand, but this is not explored in Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine.

Is there anything missing?
Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine is complete.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine are very easy to prepare. That said, the dice mechanics are not immediately easy to grasp and will take a slight adjustment getting used to because dice of a lesser value are being cancelled rather than the same value.
Is it worth it?
Yes. Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine is easy to prepare and run in a single session. It portrays a grim and grimy future with a British grottiness in which it is always 1994, whilst hinting at more to come in the core rulebook.
Where can you get it?
Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine is available to download here.
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Nightfall Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

What happens when the Player Characters have their magical items stolen? They want them back, of course, but they also want revenge. And that about sums up the motivation for Magic Eater, a scenario for Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. Except that there is a problem with that, because whilst Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying is an Old School Renaissance retroclone, it is not one known for the generosity of its treasure, let alone its magical items. In fact, Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying is renowned for its frugality with regard to such matters. So, what Magic User does instead is suggest that the Player Characters’ employer be the one who has the item, the MacGuffin, stolen and wants it returned. So, if the Player Characters have not actually had something stolen, then they can at least be repaid by someone who has. No matter who the victim of the theft is, a note was left by a notorious thief going by the name of Grimalkin, who works with a Northman, in an obvious nod to the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories of Fritz Leiber. Tracking the Grimalkin is intended to be easy because it gets to the next bit in the story, the fact that Grimalkin’s house has been set on fire, he is dead, and whatever MacGuffin the Player Characters have to retrieve is gone, having been stolen a second. This time by a gang which styles itself as the ‘Loquesymths’, which if any of the players find out how the gang spells its name, is going to result in the players thinking that their characters are dealing with a bunch of pretentious wankers.
This is the set-up for Magic Eater, a scenario for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. And despite the antagonists having been identified as pretentious wankers, things are going to get weirder from here on in, because it turns out that that yes, the ‘Loquesymths’ are a bunch of pretentious wankers, half of them are arseholes to boot. This is because half of them are now dedicated to the worship of a thing they call the ‘Magic Eater’. Part of this worship involves feeding him actual magical items—so yes, have a good guess as to has happened to whatever magical MacGuffin the Player Characters are after—and then take the great balls of excrement that the ‘Magic Eater’ defecates and brew them into psychoactive tea that grants them certain blessings whilst at the same the magic energies they are exposed to are causing them to deliquesce. Consequently, the thieves and the cultists in the ‘Loquesymths’ are easy to tell apart. The thieves look like thieves, bandits, or just ordinary folk, whilst the cultists are wrapped in cloaks to hide the fact that they have wrapped themselves in bandages. Unlike the cultists, the thieves do not make squishy sounds when they move.

The ‘Loquesymths’ hide out in a base in the boglands close to the city where the Player Characters or their employer resides. Infiltrating this base, the remnants of a Roman fort that has been used over the centuries and since fallen into a state of disrepair, is the focus of the scenario. (That said, it could be any old fortress, so need not be set in the default period of the Early Modern era for Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying.) The fortress of thieves consists of three parts. First, the above ground ruins, consisting mostly of the remaining towers and partially repaired walls, then the damp cellars, and the cult temple, a mixture of caves and tunnels and worked corridors and tunnels. The cult temple stinks like a hot, sweaty toilet, areas marked with weird colours due to the arcane seepage from the Magic Eater. There is the possibility here for any spells or magic to fail here, and when it does, it is suggested that the Game Master use either Vaginas Are Magic! or James Raggi IV’s Eldritch Cock as a means to handle this failure, and probably the most entertaining. That said, it would have been just as easy and as easy to create a table of results that could have been included.
The end of the scenario, against the semi-gigantic thaumaphage that is the Magic Eater of the title, is essentially an end of level, big boss battle. The battles against the thieves in the upper parts of the fortress are going to be fairly normal, whilst the ones against the cultists are going weird and creepy with their bandaged hands and faces and their squishy sounds, let alone the odd powers imparted to them by imbibing the excrement-infused tea they brew. The battle against the Magic Eater is going to be a big brawl of all against the hulking, lumbering grump, enlivened by the fact that his consumption of magical items has given him random magical powers. The randomness does rely on the Game Master rolling a natural twenty, so the powers may not even change over the course of the battle. Which is a pity and the Game Master might want to alter the odds to make it all the more fun for herself, if not the players and their characters.

There are some suggestions too, as to what might happen to the Player Characters actually decide to drink that tea—definitely not a good idea; what they might do with the fortress afterwards, because possession is possession; and what actual treasure might found if the Player Characters search the fortress above ground and below. There are suggestions to determine if the MacGuffin that the Player Characters were attempting to retrieve is still here and has not been eaten and what might be found if the players and their characters decide that a colonoscopy is in order. It might be the MacGuffin, or it might be one of the most useless magic items ever created. It really is useless—and intentionally so.
Also included in Magic Eater is the bonus scenario, ‘Another Rough Night at the Dog & Bastard’. If that sounds like the author’s author’s tribute to ‘A Rough Night at the Three Feathers’, the classic scenario for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, recently updated as Rough Days & Hard Days, then you would be right. In this scenario, the Player Characters take refuge at the eponymous inn on the same night as a trio of nuns who are not as innocent as they look, a bounty hunter, a thief, and a pair of sex cultists, because after all, this is a scenario for Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. And the cultists would not mind having sex with everyone and if that is done in front of their cult idol, it releases what can only be best described as ‘Jizz Pixies’. In addition, the inn and its staff have secrets of their own, randomly determined. The scenario primarily works off a relationship map which connects ten NPCs. The players will need to actively involve their characters in the relationship map to get the most out of the scenario, which is both roleplaying and NPC interaction heavy. As a one-night, one session affair, ‘Another Rough Night at the Dog & Bastard’ is pruriently serviceable.
Physically, Magic Eater is well-presented. Both artwork and cartography are decent, the maps being very clear and the depictions of the cultists a little creepy. It does need an edit in places.

Magic Eater is a daft scenario that punishes the Player Characters for being too attached to their possessions and then rewards them with a nice piece of real estate if they try to get them back—if they survive. That does not mean it is not entertaining though and Magic Eater is easy to drop into any campaign.
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DISCLAIMER: The author of this review is an editor who has edited titles for Lamentations of the Flame Princess on a freelance basis. He was not involved in the production of this book and his connection to both publisher and author has no bearing on the resulting review.

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Lamentations of the Flame Princess will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Under the Seal of Solomon is a scenario for Into the Bronze: Sword & Sorcery RPG in Bronze Age. Published by Lantern’s Faun, as the title suggests, it is set in the Bronze Age in Mesopotamia on the plains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Here the first city states were founded, here the first men and the women strode forth to explore the lands between the first two great rivers known to mankind, to enter the silent, gloomy valleys where demons and their acolytes hid and devised their evil plans, here they would encounter the very gods of Sumer, and here they would build the first great civilisations. As those first men and women to stride the land, the Player Characters are Sumerian ‘Bounty Hunters’ , those willing to go forth and undertake dangerous tasks—explore the unknown, hunt down criminals, kill monsters, and more… In Under the Seal of Solomon, the Player Characters have a greater calling—killing demons!

In Under the Seal of Solomon, the king, Solomon himself, has selected the Player Characters for a great task. Whether the Player Characters are augurs, astronomers, sorcerers, priests, or warriors, you have been given a new role—exorcist. Demons run rampant across his kingdom, and King Solomon has chosen them to rid them from his lands. However, this is no easy task since demons cannot be killed. Instead, their physical manifestation must be defeated, the demon captured, and then conveyed to the Temple of Solomon where it can confess its corruptions. Only then will the kingdom be free of that one demon. There are seventy-two demons. If though, a demon cannot be killed, how is this task to be achieved? In addition to blessing the Exorcists with an oath to capture the demons, King Solomon bestows them with three other gifts. These are the Keys of Solomon, the Seal of Solomon, and the Jar of Solomon. The Keys work in similar fashion to the Magic Words in Into the Bronze, being written down on tablets or sheets of vellum and used against a demon. However, unlike the tablets of the Magic Worlds, the Keys of Solomon do not break, only the implements using them do. The Seal of Solomon is a ring engraved with his sigil used to seal the written Keys, whilst the Jar of Solomon is used to trap a demon before taking it to the Temple of Solomon. So think of this as Ghostbusters, but with Demons and set in Ancient Mesopotamia and not New York.

The bulk of Under the Seal of Solomon is dedicated to describing its seventy-two demons who are ranked as Kings, Dukes, Princes, Marquises, Counts, Knights, and Presidents—and some can hold more than one rank. A pleasing presentation places the hierarchy of the demons upon the steps of a ziggurat! Each demon is described in terms of its Manifestation, its Domain, and what Invocations it knows. The Domain is the power it holds over other demons and the Invocations are the powers it tempts sorcerers with. For example, Bael, King of the East, holds the Rank of King, manifests as a three-headed conglomeration of cat, toad, and man, has the Domain of “66 legions of demons”, and his Invocations include the teaching of science, bestowing of Invisibility, and the teaching of love. Attributes, Hit Points, and Damage are determined by the demon’s Rank.

In terms of support and advice, Under the Seal of Solomon suggests that a demon might be hiding amongst the population or tempting them openly as a false god, or colluding with a sorcerer. It suggests having a single demon dominate or take over a single hex, creating a location around it, in the process turning Into the Bronze into not so much a hexcrawl, but a hex clearance. The other factor that the Under the Seal of Solomon makes clear is that seventy-two demons is a lot and so the Player Characters are not the only ones to have received the blessings of King Solomon. This enables the Game Master to bring rival Exorcists into play. Lastly, Under the Seal of Solomon notes that it is set during the end of the Bronze Age, at the dawn of the Iron Age.

Physically, Under the Seal of Solomon is nicely presented, although the use of red text on black in places is not easy to read. It does need another edit.

Unfortunately, Under the Seal of Solomon is at best very light, at worst underwritten and underdeveloped. For example, it is not quite clear whether one Exorcist is holding the Keys of Solomon, the Seal of Solomon, and the Jar of Solomon and using them to fight demons or if they are divided between several Exorcists. Nor is it really clear how the Keys of Solomon work against the demons and what the user is actually dealing with them. Similarly, there is no actual adventure in Under the Seal of Solomon as its cover claims. Instead, what it gives the Game Master is a campaign set-up. It is not even a campaign framework, because there is only a beginning, and not a middle or an end. After all, what happens when the Exorcists have defeated all of the demons?

Ultimately, there is no denying that Under the Seal of Solomon is a great set-up for Bronze: Sword & Sorcery RPG in Bronze Age Mesopotamia (and indeed for any roleplaying game set in Bronze Age Mesopotamia). Unfortunately, it simply does not support the Game Master as fully as it should and leaves her with more concepts to develop and questions to answer than it really should.
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Soul Muppet Publishing will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: Hospital IslandPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Jane E Cooper

Setting: Jazz Age EnglandProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-three page, 12.36 MB PDFElevator Pitch: Hospital horror in the fog of isolationPlot Hook: A mysterious telegram calls for help.
Plot Support: Staging advice, four handouts, three maps, five NPCs, and eight Mythos monsters.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Can be run using Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos# Easy to adapt to other times# Nice sense of isolation# Combines the cosy and the consternation# Mycophobia# Homichlophobia# Autophobia
Cons# Needs an edit# Are an Investigator and the prime villain related?# Feels like a solo adventure for a party of Investigators
Conclusion# Atmospheric, isolated sense of foreboding and something lurking.# Solid scenario that needs a polish to make it stand out.